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Enable Community Repository

Mate is available in the Community repository. Uncomment http://<url>/alpine/<version>/community in /etc/apk/repositories. For example:

Contents of /etc/apk/repositories

# /etc/apk/repositories

#/media/sdb/apks
http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/alpine/v3.8/main
http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/alpine/v3.8/community
#http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/alpine/v3.8/testing

Install MATE Desktop

Mate is available in the community repository.

The next commands are used to install all avaliable video drivers and setup Xorg server:

videodrivers=$(apk search --quiet --exact xf86-video* | grep -v -- '\-doc$')
setup-xorg-base $videodrivers

Now let us install a bunch of needed packages what includes all MATE Desktop packages avaliable in our Edge repository:

apk add desktop-file-utils gtk-engines consolekit gtk-murrine-engine caja caja-extensions marco dbus lxdm udev hicolor-icon-theme sudo
mate_pkgs=$(apk search mate -q | grep -v '\-dev' | grep -v '\-lang' | grep -v '\-doc')
apk add $mate_pkgs

In the next step we add some services to start up with the operating system:

rc-update add lxdm rc-update add dbus rc-update add udev

If you do not have a user other than root, it is time to do so. I am going to create a user called "monitor":

adduser -h /home/monitor -g "Monitor User" monitor

We will start D-Bus before other services in order to fix D-Bus configuration file (replace the hard coded 'system_bus_socket' path): Starting D-Bus:

rc-service dbus start

Fixing the D-Bus configuration file:

dbus_sock_path=$(find / -name system_bus_socket)
dbus_sock_path=$(echo $dbus_sock_path | sed 's/\//\\&/g')
sed -i 's/\/var\/run\/dbus\/system_bus_socket/'$dbus_sock_path'/' /etc/dbus-1/system.conf

apk del mate-screensaver ln -s /usr/etc/xdg/menus/ /etc/xdg/menus apk add mate-screensaver

Adding avaliables True Type Fonts:

ttfs=$(apk search -q ttf- | grep -v '\-doc')
apk add $ttfs

If you are running your Alpine from RAM, save the changes:

lbu ci

And finally, let us start the lxdm service and log in to our MATE Desktop

rc-service udev start rc-service lxdm start

It just so happens that the preceding sequence of steps makes an apparently broken Xfce4 install work properly as well.

Misc

Disabling standby and screensaver

First of all check the actual configuration using xset:

localhost:~$ sudo apk add xset localhost:~$ xset q ... cut ... Standby: 600 Suspend: 600 Off: 600 DPMS is Enabled Monitor is On localhost:~$

To disable those timers issue the command?

localhost:~$ xset dpms 0 0 0

If you wanna check the timers again:

localhost:~$ xset q ... cut ... Standby: 0 Suspend: 0 Off: 0 DPMS is Enabled Monitor is On localhost:~$