this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Alpine as a desktop OS (lemm.ee)
submitted 2 months ago by emiellr@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This might be the dumbest stuff anyone has asked here, but has anyone tried running Alpine as a desktop base OS? Seems pretty well stocked when it comes to the repo, and it's light asf.

Thoughts?

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[–] Sickday@kbin.earth 17 points 2 months ago

I did for some time. There's beauty in the simplicity and flexibility of Alpine, plus BusyBox is great once you understand all the weird quirks between it and coreutils. As unpopular as it might be, I actually really like OpenRC. Alpine feels pretty close to BSD if you're familiar with that family of operating systems. These days I use it for just about all my servers save for a few Nix boxes.

If you decide to explore this route, here are a couple tools I found useful at the start:

  • Conty - A single executable that launches applications in a standalone Linux Container
  • x11docker - Run GUI apps and desktop environments in docker and podman containers.

Also might behoove you to check out Alpine community's documentation on chroots in case you need specific software that isn't available otherwise.

[–] bbbhltz 17 points 2 months ago

I did this for several months. If you check out the Alpine community you'll see that many people do this. So, it is not a dumb idea. Alpine is a "generalist" distro and comes packed with all the DEs and WMs you want. They also accept package requests and are usually pretty fast about it.

I would recommend using the Edge branch just to have access to the newest packages, but keep an eye on the issue tracker before hitting update. Also, get on their Matrix and other accounts to follow different discussions.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 months ago

There is nothing stopping you from doing so

[–] visone@fosstodon.org 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@emiellr
I did it for a while and I'm about to do it again

[–] emiellr@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago

[–] funkajunk@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I saw a video on this exact topic a while ago, it was pretty interesting. Not enough to make me move off Arch (BTW), but I could see it used on some old hardware if I felt like tinkerin'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYtJ3jyMRs

[–] soundconjurer@mstdn.social 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)
[–] emiellr@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Thank I'll check it out

[–] s08nlql9@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Arch (BTW)

I see what you did there

[–] dotslashme@infosec.pub 6 points 2 months ago

It's absolutely fine, even if something is missing you can solve that with distrobox or similar tools.

[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sorry for the reddit link, I don't know of a mirror. This was posted just today, running on an EeePC:

https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/1fitgri/labwc_pimp_your_10_inches_laptop_with_alpine_linux/

[–] emiellr@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ayo wtf, that desktop is pretty asf. Well done!

[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not my post btw, just sharing the link :)

[–] emiellr@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Oh right, I forgot. Ahem... REDDIT?! HERESY!!1!

[–] glaber@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I tried to get it running on a 2 GiB RAM laptop I've got, but couldn't get wifi to work at all

[–] emiellr@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Damn that's a shame

[–] glaber@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I know! Will definitely try again at the next release. So far I'm running a minimal install of Arch without DE (only running Sway) and it works pretty well, but I'm not a fan of the bleeding edge release schedule. Wouls prefer something more stable, especially for that laptop which I don't plan on using as my daily driver

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

Use Debian

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago

Let me guess, Broadcom

Back in my day Broadcom was the company that causes non stop problems

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The current installer was borked so i tried Void for my server.

Btw, Xorg has no permission for video on my Void notebook? I ask here since both are somewhat similiar.

[–] emiellr@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

brother this has nothing to do with my post 😂

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Should have been attached to another answer.