Alpine Linux 3.11 Introduces KDE/GNOME Desktop Support, Raspberry Pi 4 Compatibility

[Raka555]

This has been my Distro of choice for everything except desktop since they switched to musl.
I have quite a few servers running Alpine in production.
I immediately thought this is "Linux done right" when I discovered Alpine.
I can only hope that they will stick to their philosophy as they get more popular.
I would hate it if they morph into just another bloated linux distro.( I am referring to memory foot print)
It is really painful to go back to debian/ubuntu packages after working with Alpine.
Maybe I can give their desktop a try now as well.

BTW: My repos are pointing to "latest-stable" and I just had to type "apk upgrade" to get on to this release.
Everything is working like a charm after the upgrade, but ymmv.

Note: I am not really a big busybox fan, so I always "tame it" a bit with the following packages:
apk add vim htop util-linux less

[Awesomeness]

It's incorrect however that they label it as an lts kernel.

5.4 is an LTS kernel: https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html

[Raka555]

can I install la desktop environment atop Alpine? Will it be usable as an OS? Or this is just for containers? Thx

Alpine actually was not targeted at containers. It was meant to be a security hardened OS for building firewall/routers/etc.

The docker people then discovered that they can shed a lot of bloat by using Alpine instead of "%insert mainstream distro here%" as a base.

I have used Alpine as a desktop on my one laptop and it certainly works, but there was a fair bit of manual installation and configuration that I had to do. It took days to get everything the way I wanted it.

The question now is: Will the KDE and gnome desktops they added be in a already customized state or will they be pretty raw where you have to configure many things yourself ? That is still a question to be answered.

[timofonic]

Are KDE and GNOME built using Musl? If yes... HOW??!!??!!

[aht0]

Are KDE and GNOME built using Musl? If yes... HOW??!!??!!

By judiciously patching upstream sources of particular DE's, locally, before trying to build their packages would be my guess.
I am curious tho how well they got around systemd dependent pieces in case of Gnome. Alpine has OpenRC for init, or had when I last used it.

[k1e0x]

By judiciously patching upstream sources of particular DE's, locally, before trying to build their packages would be my guess.
I am curious tho how well they got around systemd dependent pieces in case of Gnome. Alpine has OpenRC for init, or had when I last used it.

For Gnome same way Gentoo and FreeBSD do (and everyone else) elogind or backporting pollkit .. almost feels intentional by Redhat to make it so.
KDE needs no alteration they support general Unix like OS's (not just ones with a penguin as a mascot)

[Templar82]

Are KDE and GNOME built using Musl? If yes... HOW??!!??!!

Void linux has had KDE with musl for some time, while I don't know how it works behind the scenes, Alpine probably didn't need to do all the work.

[aht0]

For Gnome same way Gentoo and FreeBSD do (and everyone else) elogind or backporting pollkit .. almost feels intentional by Redhat to make it so.
KDE needs no alteration they support general Unix like OS's (not just ones with a penguin as a mascot)

Yeah, using stuff from Void might make it easier getting around glibc-specifics. Threw it on 15y old spare laptop for a quick peek.

Gnome3 is v3.34 by the look of it. You 'll have to enable Community repo by editing /etc/apk/repositories , then do apk update , then you can search for available DE's and install them (apk add pkgname). There's still also XFCE for those seeking lighter DE.

Seemed to work even on oddball OpenChrome iGPU (which has shrugged off all mainstream distros so far). Kernels had OpenChrome updated between 5.1/5.4?

Using it gives really odd feeling lol. Like GhostBSD mixed with Android-x86. Nice debloated Linux.

[caligula]

Ages a go, I tried to install Alpine on a PC with Nvidia's GPU. Had issues. I think I had XFCE installed for DE but never got around graphics card problem because they used musl, not glibc. It worked fine as a general (home) server tho (used to run it awhile on Kabini AM1 box)

Maybe they'll switch to glibc at some point or even better, make a mega libc that contains compatibility layer for POSIX, GNU, Windows, and Beos? Then again, maybe not.

[timofonic]

Maybe they'll switch to glibc at some point or even better, make a mega libc that contains compatibility layer for POSIX, GNU, Windows, and Beos? Then again, maybe not.

And MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Atari 2600, Game Boy, Super Nintendo, Master System, Sega Genesis...