When starting to learn something, you should consider your capabilities and the availability of resources:
1 - Check Requirements
As humans, we have real-life requirements and related requirements.
Real Life Requirements
- Manners: You must have a passion for reading and analysis.
- Time: You will need time because you will need to read a lot!
- Device: You should have a computer, or at least a phone, or something similar. For example, you could use Termux or iOS for phones.
- Knowledge: You should have knowledge of using Linux, Git, and editors.
- vi/nano: You must know how to use vi and nano editors. Just writing and saving are enough.
- Linux File System Hierarchy (LFSH): You must read about the Linux file system hierarchy. You just need to know where the files should go.
- Git: You must know minimal usage of Git. Just cloning and pulling are enough.
- Unix-like: You should have some way to interact with a Unix-like operating system, like MacOS or Linux.
- xterm: You must know how to use xterm. You should be able to copy/paste text and manage a terminal command line.
- SSH: You must know how to use SSH at the command line.
- Internet: You need minimal bandwidth on an internet network because almost all development forces you to contribute over the internet.
2 - Where to Start
Please, check the requirements mentioned above, before continuing. This material (newbie sections) assumes a more general level and helps you to follow the steps more slowly. Of course, the first document to read is alpine-newbie-install.md. After installation, read alpine-newbie-xfce-desktop.md. But for more focused guides, the requirements mentioned above are mandatory. Without them, you will not be able to understand the documents in the ../tutorials/ directory space. Guides or tutorials will assume you already have those knowledge requirements.
WARNING
- First of all, if you have not used Linux before, this is not a “click click” environment.
- Second: if you come from other Linux distributions, there are significant differences compared to others, such as MUSL libc!
This means that most of the programs may require manual intervention or precompilation. If you plan to use Alpine Linux as a desktop, you might find the path difficult, but it’s totally manageable and also has excellent performance. Alpine is best known for usage in containers, like Docker or virtual machines.
About Copyright Material
The 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, which include the following elements:
- BY – Credit must be given to the creator of each content respectively, starting at the first contributor.
- NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted, with exceptions if you fill an issue here!
- SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms. You must obey these terms and not change them.
Please check our ../alpine/copyright.md.