Daily driver guide

Alpine Linux is a general purpose Linux distribution designed for power users. It is built to be small and resource efficient. If you feel the defaults are too lightweight for desktop use, it is easy to get most of the regular stuff working and use it as a daily driver.

This guide assumes you have already installed a minimal Alpine Linux system in system disk mode with working internet by following the Installation guide. The following steps are mandatory to install any desktop of your choice either using setup-desktop script or manually.

• Internet connectivity, unless the packages have been pre-fetched into a local cache.
• Install appropriate Graphics driver drivers for your hardware. Without graphics drivers, errors are likely to occur when starting your desktop.
• A non-root user account.
• The community repository must be enabled.
• Set up eudev.
• Install and enable D-Bus. Without D-Bus, icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing.

Basics

• Learn the alpine package keeper basics or refer wiki for more details.
• Install some fonts to make your desktop look better.
• Setup PipeWire to manage your audio, if setup-desktop did not install it for your already or you installed your desktop environment manually.
• Configure your Bluetooth, if you have one.
• Configure your printer.
• Enable documentation, so man pages are available.
• Secure your system by installing firewall software like awall or UFW.
• To keep your system secure, regularly check and apply updates with the package manager.

Advanced

• Use Flatpak to add packages that are not in the repositories.
• Install gcompat package to add a glibc compatability layer which lets you run glibc binaries as normal.
• Install a sandboxing application like AppArmor or Bubblewrap.
• Learn basics of openrc, the alpine Linux init system or refer Open rc wiki.
• If you want the rolling release version of Alpine Linux, enable the Edge repository.
• You may want to explore the testing repository, as it provides a lot more applications.