This category section will try to guide new ones with enought knowledge of Linux.
Alpine is the OS (Operating System), that runs on your machine. Programs such as a web browser runs on the OS, and web pages like “wiki.alpinelinux.org” are handled by the web browser.
Alpine is the Program combo that really runs in dockers, due to the great popularity of Docker, Alpine Linux is one of the most deployed operating systems currently in use, because within every Docker deploy the docker image it uses is almost always Alpine Linux.
Linux is just the kernel that handles and manages the hardware to the operating system.
Alpine Linux is different from most other Linux distros in a few ways:
In next sections you will find general information necessary to start in the Alpine powered world for a new user.
| Link | Purpose of the section |
|---|---|
| FAQ | Some Frequently Asked Questions that might be useful to you |
| Alpine Newbie Prepare | Some post installation steps you might want to take |
| Alpine Newbie Install | Those writings are more focused on “Follow these steps blindly” for beginners, those pages are specific general cases, by example on virtual-box ones. |
| Alpine Newbie Configs | Some post installation steps you might want to take |
| Alpine newbie Desktop | As a minimal distribution, Alpine follows the rule of “upstream provided”, this means that Alpine doesn’t ship with any graphical environments neither specific integrated configurations for. So means, but, you can installed some Desktops and Window Managers but must configured by yourself. |
| Alpine newbie Develop | Alpine development stack: Alpine Linux is the most used Linux for deploying software, making it a good choice if you are a developer. |
Alpine newbie install wiki pages are focused on the idea to cover popular quick cases that only offer the ready-to-use installation, that is, cases where only alpine will be the OS to install, in order to understand it faster, once understood, you can play and deep more granular over your preferred install.
For more granular or more specific cases you will have to read the hand book installation wiki page at ../alpine/Installation.md. Its more recommended you first use an alpine virtual-box install and understand the system before try more deep install process, that is why we offered in newbie category the Alpine Newbie Install pages.
The programs, the software installed to Alpine comes from two places: repositories (those managed by Alpine) and original upstream sources (those compiled as Unix-like traditional way).
If you are so hurry just read and go to the Alpine Newbie Configs page, but here we will provide a minimal information about the nature of the post install artifacts.
Alpine software repositories are managed by the repositories and uses packages. Each Alpine release have two branch of repositories. The /community repository of each Alpine release contains community supported packages that were accepted from the /testing repository. Only /main repository of each version of Alpine release are supported for Main Alpine Developers and Man Powers and received official support by almost few years until new releases happened.
Please check Alpine Newbie Configs for guidelines
Software packages for Alpine Linux are digitally signed tar.gz archives containing programs, configuration files, and dependency metadata. They have the extension .apk (yes, please don’t confused with Androit ones), and are often called “a-packs”.
Are managed with the apk command, located at /sbin/apk, it uses /etc/apk/ place for
the configurations files, and stores all downloaded “a-packs” files in /etc/apk/cache
from the repositories before unpacks and put the package files compiled into the installed system.
As new user those technical tips are not necessary now, you can read the Alpine Newbie apk packages page to just read all about packages install only.. for more deep in advanced: those technical topic are in the apk wiki official page.
In earlier days, Alpine used a separate Gentoo build environment. Nowadays we can build in Alpine environment itself.
There’s many kind of developers.. more are Distro targeted (like Alpine package development), others web oriented as Front-end web development or a Back-End Web Developer (like webpage design or applications services) , and others DevOps (backend programming and/or software development (Dev) and information-technology operations (Ops))
In DevOps and/or Web Development, Whatever will be, installation of the devel tools are the next step: the alpine-sdk is a metapackage that pulls in the most essential packages used to development environments; Also the crosstool-ng if you will setup different architectures or cross-compiling.
For development of packages.. there’s two branchs: using the Alpine edge branch or using the Alpine stable, the only difference are the target, edge used the most up to date but not well tested software packages and the results are for the next Alpine releases. The recommendation to develop packages for newbies, are using Alpine Linux in a chroot, later when users got more experience.. must move to others way to develop packages.. at the actual status of a newbie it’s the most easy and faster way.
All the Development process are detailed for newbie users in the Alpine newbie developer page.
We know that new users are not so xperts, so then here are the networks you can check for newbies:
##alpine_telegram_english#alpine_linux_englishCC BY-NC-SA: this project allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creators involved. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms, includes the following elements:
For more information check the ../alpine/copyright.md