Alpine Linux 3.15 Released - Builds Off Linux 5.15, Drops MIPS64, SimpleDRM For FB

Alpine Linux 3.15 is out today as the newest feature update to this lightweight/embedded/containers focused Linux distribution known for its musl+Busybox usage along with OpenRC as the init system.

Alpine Linux 3.15 ships with a wide variety of package updates including use of the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel, LLVM 12, PostgreSQL 14, Rust 1.56, OpenJDK Java 17, GNOME 41, X.Org Server 21.1, KDE Plasma 5.23, and many other updates.

Besides the package updates, Alpine Linux 3.15 original changes are noted for finally supporting now UEFI SecureBoot on x86_64 with it not having been much of a focus for the distro given its container focus. Further boosting its bare metal potential is Alpine Linux 3.15 adding support to its installer for disk encryption and support for loading out-of-tree kernel modules using the DKMS-like AKMS.

Alpine Linux 3.15 also now compresses its kernel modules using Gzip, the kernel frame-buffer drivers are now disabled with SimpleDRM being used instead, and the MIPS64 architecture support has been removed with that architecture now considered end-of-life.

More details on this big feature release of Alpine Linux 3.15 can be found via AlpineLinux.org.