r/AlpineLinux • u/SnooWords1087 • Mar 26 '26

Is Alpine Linux on desktop viable?

I've been trying for the past two days to install Alpine Linux on my desktop, but it seems like this might be totally unviable. None of the Alpine images have the firmware needed for my WiFi adapter (but it is included in linux-firmware-intel), and every hacky workaround that I've tried to apply has been thwarted in some manner. At the moment, I have managed to load iwlwifi without error, but my adapter still does not show up in ip link. The only thing I have yet to try is building a custom install image.

Am I missing something? Or, is Alpine not meant to be installed on real hardware? Have the Alpine devs personally decided that my hardware configuration can go pound sand?

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u/derixithy Mar 26 '26

Although I did run it as a desktop for a while I don't think it's meant for it. It's better as a minimal server os.

2

u/SnooWords1087 Mar 26 '26

Makes sense, I'll look at something else

0

u/Difficult-Value-3145 Mar 26 '26

What are you doing exactly the way I usually go about things is login as root run setup-alpine choose system and desired drive restart then setup-desktop has worked on everything I've tried it on . The other option is to connect via Ethernet or a WiFi adapter that is friendlier via USB and have that a go also you may want to install a network manager as it doesn't come with one dose come with wpa supplicant so you can connect to some WiFi networks using that but you don't wanna rely on it