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[[Category:Linux Distributions]] | [[Category:Linux Distributions]] | ||
Alpine Linux, according to their main site, is a general purpose Linux distribution that aims to be "small," "simple," and "secure." It achieves this by using only the most basic and necessary binaries as well as tools to get started, compiled as Position Independent Executables (PIEs) in order to ensure the installed system is centered around one or a few simple tasks without any unnecessary components. Instead of systemd, it uses OpenRC, and instead of glibc, it uses musl libc in pursuit of greater efficiency. | Alpine Linux, according to their main site, is a general purpose Linux distribution that aims to be "small," "simple," and "secure." It achieves this by using only the most basic and necessary binaries as well as tools to get started, compiled as Position Independent Executables (PIEs) in order to ensure the installed system is centered around one or a few simple tasks without any unnecessary components. Instead of systemd, it uses OpenRC, and instead of glibc, it uses musl libc in pursuit of greater efficiency. | ||
Alpine Linux is most commonly used in embedded systems and servers due to its ease of deployment and manageability. Its main package manager is 'apk', short for 'Alpine Package Keeper' (not to be confused with Android APKs.) Alpine's repositories are very small compared to most user-oriented distributions nowadays, hence it isn't used much on desktop machines. | |||
Alpine does not come with a graphical environment, editor or even a tool to execute as superuser out of the box, however it provides a number of scripts for setting up numerous things, among which are: | |||
1) setup-desktop: Friendly TUI script to quickly set up a desktop environment and necessary tools to start working. | |||
2) setup-xorg-base: Invokes 'apt' to download a number of Xorg-related packages. Note that it doesn't allow you to start working with Xorg right away, you still need to fetch other important packages and setup other things. | |||
Latest revision as of 14:47, 3 October 2024
Alpine Linux, according to their main site, is a general purpose Linux distribution that aims to be "small," "simple," and "secure." It achieves this by using only the most basic and necessary binaries as well as tools to get started, compiled as Position Independent Executables (PIEs) in order to ensure the installed system is centered around one or a few simple tasks without any unnecessary components. Instead of systemd, it uses OpenRC, and instead of glibc, it uses musl libc in pursuit of greater efficiency.
Alpine Linux is most commonly used in embedded systems and servers due to its ease of deployment and manageability. Its main package manager is 'apk', short for 'Alpine Package Keeper' (not to be confused with Android APKs.) Alpine's repositories are very small compared to most user-oriented distributions nowadays, hence it isn't used much on desktop machines.
Alpine does not come with a graphical environment, editor or even a tool to execute as superuser out of the box, however it provides a number of scripts for setting up numerous things, among which are:
1) setup-desktop: Friendly TUI script to quickly set up a desktop environment and necessary tools to start working.
2) setup-xorg-base: Invokes 'apt' to download a number of Xorg-related packages. Note that it doesn't allow you to start working with Xorg right away, you still need to fetch other important packages and setup other things.