Alpine Linux

Introduction

Alpine Linux is an independent, non-commercial, general purpose Linux distribution designed for power users who appreciate security, simplicity and resource efficiency. A minimal installation to disk requires only 130MB of storage. It is used in the majority of Docker container images and installs only about 8MB of operating system software.

https://alpinelinux.org/about

Installation

https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_newbie_install_manual

Fonts

To set a large font on the console command line...

apk add terminus-font
setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/ter-132n.psf.gz
nano /etc/conf.d/consolefont
rc-update add consolefont boot
reboot

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlpineLinux/comments/oipp89/set_larger_console_font_size_on_raspberry_pi/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlpineLinux/comments/evujhq/console_font/

Raspberry Pi

OK, so ignore the instructions and don't use the latest version!

Download version 3.13 for RPi4...

wget https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/releases/aarch64/alpine-rpi-3.13.0-aarch64.tar.gz

Partition your SD card...

Device     Boot  Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *      2048   503807   501760  245M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2       503808 15548415 15044608  7.2G 83 Linux

Add the usercfg.txt tweaks...

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb/
nano /mnt/usb/usercfg.txt

disable_overscan=1
enable_uart=1

Boot first time, log in as root with no password and run...

setup-alpine

Setup keyboard, wireless, timezone, hostname, etc. then run...

setup-disk

Choose to unmount /dev/mmcblk0 and then choose 'sys' install method using 'mmcblk0' and wipe and install.

reboot

Done.

Tutorials and Howtos for Raspberry_Pi

Diskless Install Mode on Raspberry Pi

Classic Install Mode on Raspberry Pi

Package Management

apk update
apk search packagename
apk add packagename
apk policy packagename

https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_Linux_package_management

System Upgrade

apk -U upgrade

Docker

Enable the 'community' repository in /etc/apk/repositories

http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/main
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/community

Update the package list...

apk update

Install Docker...

apk add docker

Add Docker to the boot process...

rc-update add docker boot
service docker start

...done!

https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Docker

Information

Alpine boot process on the Raspberry Pi