I’d probably use Alpine to some capacity if NixOS wasn’t a thing.
I’m trying to get into Nix but I’m too stupid for it or something
It has a steep learning curve in the beginning but so does every mildly complex thing.
If there’s anything you’re stuck with, make sure you seek help in the appropriate channels such as !nixos!nixos@lemmy.ml.
I tried Alpine for a desktop installation. The package manager has surprisingly decent package set. And the performance is the best I found, for some reason applications starts faster. But I had to stop the experience because websites thats includes widevine didn’t work. Its sad to say, but many softwares relies on non-standard glibc shit. With glibc instead of musl Alpine can be simply the best distro. If musl is not faster that glibc I don’t think glibc will make Alpine slower.
You can use glibc programs in Alpine using containers, chroots, Flatpak, etc.
This wasn’t on Alpine, but I used to run Steam on a musl Void Linux install in a chroot.
I’ve been playing around with Alpine recently and I quite like it. Now if I can just get my virtual desktop Alpine container to work correctly I would be very happy haha.
Very nice article. I mostly know alpine from postmarketOS, but maybe I should look at it on the desktop at some point.
I’ve been installing Gentoo on my every machine. But I realistically could install Alpine on those few that I don’t use so often. At least I’m gonna test. It’s been years since I used Alpine on any machine.
Alpine is pretty awesome. The reason I use Debian over it is mostly just because I’m more familiar with it. Though I don’t run alpine on a couple servers. The docs are also awesome.
Alpine was never meant as a desktop distribution.
expired
Because its a “niche” distro (like OpenBSD) that does not have a “real” purpose. As in, its niche is not “mandatory” by any means.
It’s just a general purpose distro…
What is the “real” purpose of Debian or Arch?
And it’s really not that niche - many Docker images are based on it, postmarketOS is based on it.
Also OpenBSD is not a distro, it’s a completely different OS.
What is the “real” purpose of Debian or Arch?
I should have been more clear – Debian/Arch “just works” and (both low/mid/high users) do not need of anything beyond that. And both Alpine/OpenBSD do not provide an extra “need” to anything of what both Debian/Arch already does. Unless if Alpine and/or OpenBSD provides a feature that makes Arch/Debian obsolete in any way… then yep, both will become more relevant.
Judging by various posts I’ve seen Arch and Debian both don’t “just work” for many users.
Also I really don’t get your point about providing a feature to make others “obsolete”… what do popular distros like Manjaro or Mint provide that make Arch/Ubuntu obsolete? And at least Manjaro has managed to be in the news quite a few times unfortunately.
The point of the article is that Alpine works, both on a technical level and as a project, without unnecessary drama.
I’d (mostly) say the same about OpenBSD too, btw.
both don’t “just work” for many users.
…Windows users (migrating from Windows to Linux or just “posers”) do not count. :^)
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Alpine linux has plenty of cases
pretty good for servers
a fast package manager
…which are easily surpassed by (pretty much any distro). And idk why you highlighted those like its a some sort of “deal breaker” for whoever wants a stable/reliable distro – even a potato (486 and down) can run apt (which is terribly slow compared to any other package manager) incredibly fast nowadays. If those are (still) issues that are considered to be critical by you… then eh, I’m afraid to say that it’s a (You) problem. :^)
bro
(insert thuglife 12 year old here)
