Desktop environments and Window managers
Alpine Linux has no official desktop and setting up a graphical environment is not even part of Installation. All window managers and desktop environments that are available in Alpine Linux are listed in this page. Quick installation using setup-desktop script is available for few desktops.
Desktop environments
Desktop environment (DE) is made of a bundle of programs that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. A desktop environment typically consists of icons, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers desktop widgets and might also provide drag and drop.
Window managers
A window manager is software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. In case of Wayland, these are called compositors because they additionally perform the task of a compositing window manager.
Almost all components of a desktop needs to be added manually by the user. A stacking a.k.a. floating or tiling a.k.a. dynamic layout is commonly used for window management.
| WM Name | Protocol | Style | Toolkit | Inspiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awesome | X11 | Tiling | Lua | |
| berry | X11 | Stacking | C | |
| bspwm | X11 | Tiling | C | |
| cage | Wayland | Kiosk | C/wlroots | ratpoison |
| cagebreak | Wayland | Tiling | C/wlroots | ratpoison and cage |
| cwm | X11 | Stacking | C | |
| dwl | Wayland | Tiling | C/wlroots | dwm |
| dwm | X11 | Tiling | C | |
| Fluxbox | X11 | Stacking | C++ | Blackbox |
| herbstluftwm | X11 | Tiling | C++ | |
| Hyprland | Wayland | Tiling | C++ | |
| i3 | X11 | Tiling | C | |
| jwm | X11 | Stacking | C | |
| LabWC | Wayland | Stacking | C/wlroots | Openbox |
| mwm | X11 | Stacking | C | |
| Openbox | X11 | Stacking | C | |
| Qtile | Both | Tiling | Python | |
| ratpoison | X11 | Kiosk | C | |
| River | Wayland | Tiling | Zig | dwm and xmonad |
| spectrwm | X11 | Tiling | C | xmonad and dwm |
| Sway | Wayland | Tiling | C/wlroots | i3 |
| twm | X11 | Tiling | C | |
| wayfire | Wayland | Stacking | C++/wlroots | Compiz |
| Weston | Wayland | Stacking | C |