Post installation
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General Notes
- When # is displayed before a command, that means the command needs to be run with root privileges.
- Anything in < > is likely just a placeholder that you need to replace (example: <editor> file.txt).
- Some information in here might be a repeat of information in other wiki pages. If you find a section where that is the case, please add a link to the original wiki page.
Network setup
Wi-Fi
Ethernet (Wired)
This material needs expanding ... Documentation on Ethernet (Wired) internet setup needs to be created/expanded, maybe information from other wiki's/docs might be helpful? |
Creating a new standard user account
After installing Alpine by default you only get a root account. You will probably want to create an account that is not root,
# adduser <YourUsername>
You will probably want to install doas so you can allow <YourUsername> to use root privileges:
# apk add doas
If you want your user to be able to use root privileges, first add them to the wheel group:
# adduser <YourUsername> wheel
You will then want to allow members of the wheel group to use root privileges with doas. To do this, open the doas config file:
# <editor> /etc/doas.d/doas.conf
Add the following line and save the file:
permit persist :wheel
To switch to your new account, type exit in the shell and login as the new user.
Groups
Groups are needed for certain operations on your system (e.g audio
to manage your system audio). Below is a list of groups:
disk:x:6:root,adm Only if need usage with virtual machines and access to other partitions over new disks for lp:x:7:lp If you need use printing services and printers management floppy:x:11:root Backward compatible group, use only if need access to external special devices audio:x:18: Need for audio listening and management of sound volumes as normal user cdrom:x:19: For access to disk writers and mounting DVD, BR or CD-ROM disk as normal user dialout:x:20:root Need for dial private connections and use of modems as normal users tape:x:26:root Need this if planning to use special devices for backup. Rarely used on servers video:x:27:root For usage of cameras, more than one GPU special features, as normal user netdev:x:28: For network connections management as normal user kvm:x:34:kvm Only if as normal user will manage graphically virtual machines. Rarely used on servers games:x:35: Need if you want to play games also especially needed to share score between users cdrw:x:80: To write RW-DVD, RW-BR or RW-CD disk on a disk writing device apache:x:81: Need if you will perform development as normal user and want to publish locally on web server usb:x:85: Need to access to special USB devices, deprecated group users:x:100:games If you plan to used common files for all users, mandatory as desktop usage input:x:23 Needed if you want your mouse and keyboard to work in a graphical desktop environment (xorg only? idk)
To add your user to a group use the following command:
# adduser <YourUsername> <group>
Repositories
The Alpine software repositories have three branches:
- Main: Main packages are the Alpine software that have direct support and updates from the Alpine core and main team. They also have official special documentation, are always available for all releases and will have substitutions if some are not continued from upstream. Commonly, those packages are selected due to their responsibility and stability with respect to upstream availability. When those in testing perform well or are mature, they go to the main branch.
- Community: Community packages are those made by users in concert with the official developers and integrated into the Alpine packages. They are user supported. Support could end if the user ends support with respect to Alpine work. For example, could not include substitution in next release due to lack of support by the upstream author. They are in edge, and when accepted, go to the community branch.
- Edge: New packages come into testing repositories of the edge Alpine version and are those made by any contributor or manpower on Alpine. The edge contains unstable current development content. This branch has no release linked or related to Alpine. They are in testing and when accepted, go to the community branch.
By default only the main repository is enabled. Most users will probably want to enable the community repository. To enable a repository, remove the # in front of the URL along with any blank space.
(Example) Disabled:
Contents of /etc/apk/repositories
(Example) Enabled:
Contents of /etc/apk/repositories
To edit the repositories, open the /etc/apk/repositories
file in a text editor:
# <editor> /etc/apk/repositories
Example default configuration:
Contents of /etc/apk/repositories
To avoid having to manually update the verison in /etc/apk/repositories for each Alpine Linux update, change v3.15 to latest-stable.
Example:
Contents of /etc/apk/repositories
For security reasons, it may be a good idea to change the url's from http to https
Example:
Contents of /etc/apk/repositories
Once you have edited /etc/apk/repositories, sync the repositories with:
# apk update
Installing a Display Server (for graphical sessions)
Xorg
Most desktop environments (DE) or Windows Managers (WM) require Xorg (also called: X11, X). While in the future many will fully migrate to Wayland, currently Xorg is still widely used.
There are two ways you can get Xorg installed.
By default Alpine Linux provides a script that will install Xorg. Run the following command to install Xorg:
# setup-xorg-base
or
# apk add xorg-server xorg-server-common xorg-server-dev xorgproto xorgxrdp xorgxrdp-dev
Wayland
See also: Wayland
This material needs expanding ... Wayland documentation needs to be expanded |
Fonts
If you plan to use a graphical desktop environment, you may need/want to install fonts.
See: Fonts
Installing a desktop environment or window manager
See: Desktop environments and Window managers
Sound
By default Alpine does not come with any sound management out of the box. These are your options:
Language support
This material needs expanding ... Please feel free to help us complete it. |
- Fix unicode defaults:
sed -i 's/#unicode="NO"/#unicode="NO"\nunicode="YES"/' /etc/rc.conf
apk add musl-locales
Installs a limited set of locales (languages) for musl (C library) generated console messages.- Listing defined locales is possible with
locale -a
cp /etc/profile.d/20locale.sh /etc/profile.d/20locale.sh.sh
Copies the default locale settings. Then the custom override file can be editednano /etc/profile.d/20locale.sh.sh
.apk add lang
Pulls in the translation packages of all installed packages.apk list hunspell*
To list available hunspell dictionary packages.apk list *-xy *-xy-*
To list translation packages for your specific (xy) language (for example, pt for Portuguese).
Miscellaneous
Some other miscellaneous things that might be useful:
Basic tools
Alpine is a minimalist Linux distribution. If you expected a behavior like other Linux distributions, the similarity to them will be minimal at best. To install a selection of commonly used packages, run:
# apk add sed attr dialog bash bash-completion grep util-linux pciutils usbutils binutils findutils readline lsof less nano curl
$ export PAGER=less
Manual pages
Manual pages are not included in the base install, but are just an apk command away:
# apk add man-pages mandoc
In case you want to check if a specific command/program/configuration file has man pages:
$ man -k dd $ man -k curl $ man -k host.conf
To automatically install the documentation for all installed packages, run:
# apk add docs
Troubleshooting
I don't have permission to do anything in my user's home directory!
By default the permissions of your new user(s) home directory may be limited to the root account. Run one of these commands to change that:
# chown <YourUserName> /home/<YourUserName> && chmod 700 /home/<YourUsername>
or
# chown <YourUserName> /home/<YourUserName> && chmod 750 /home/<YourUsername>