4 ms·

I know Alpine is a great fit for any container env but I'm wondering, is it used elsewhere?

by nindalf 9y ago

harrygeez 9y ago
I know a few people who actually use it as their main OS
- majewsky 9y ago
  Indeed. Just this week, someone in my hackerspace approached me who had just switched to Alpine on his notebook, and he convinced me to quickly add support for Alpine to the minimalistic configuration management tool that I'm maintaining.
  - redbeard0x0a 9y ago
    I'm guessing this is the CM tool he was talking about: http://holocm.org/ http://holocm.org/
Lio 9y ago
I _think_ it's used by Synology as the basis of their DSM storage OS. At least you can install apk packages so that is my assumption.
- ausjke 9y ago
  not sure about this as Alpine is kind of x86 only. yes it has some armhf and ppc64 versions however it seems x86 is the main target to be run on. on the other hand, debian, openwrt etc are built for multi-arch all the time.
  - justincormack 9y ago
    No, arm, arm64 are well supported for physical install. I think ppc64le and s390x are mainly targeting container installs, but probably work for physical installs too.
cristobal23 9y ago
I used Alpine as the guest OS in VirtualBox VMs. It was useful when I was learning about Docker. It helped me compare containers to virtual machines.
SeamusBrady 9y ago
I use Alpine for the VM at the heart of my GPL WordPress tool InstantWP (https://www.instantwp.com https://www.instantwp.com). I spent six months reviewing all the smaller distributions of Linux until I found one that would boot fast enough to be usable with QEMU. It works like a charm and i rock solid. I highly recommend it.
gvalkov 9y ago
I think it's great on the Raspberry Pi [0]. It boots quickly, has a low footprint and runs in diskless mode by default [1]. I most recently used Alpine and a RPi to make an appliance of sorts, that would wait for the SSID of my Olympus WiFi-enabled camera (it acts as an AP) to show up and then sync all new photos automatically [2]. [0]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi [1]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation#Installation_Handbook [2]: https://github.com/gvalkov/olympus-photosync-server
braderhart 9y ago
Great project based on Alpine: https://postmarketos.org https://postmarketos.org

I know Alpine is a great fit for any container env but I'm wondering, is it used elsewhere?

harrygeez 9y ago

I know a few people who actually use it as their main OS

majewsky 9y ago
Indeed. Just this week, someone in my hackerspace approached me who had just switched to Alpine on his notebook, and he convinced me to quickly add support for Alpine to the minimalistic configuration management tool that I'm maintaining.
- redbeard0x0a 9y ago
  I'm guessing this is the CM tool he was talking about: http://holocm.org/ http://holocm.org/

Lio 9y ago

I _think_ it's used by Synology as the basis of their DSM storage OS. At least you can install apk packages so that is my assumption.

ausjke 9y ago
not sure about this as Alpine is kind of x86 only. yes it has some armhf and ppc64 versions however it seems x86 is the main target to be run on. on the other hand, debian, openwrt etc are built for multi-arch all the time.
- justincormack 9y ago
  No, arm, arm64 are well supported for physical install. I think ppc64le and s390x are mainly targeting container installs, but probably work for physical installs too.

cristobal23 9y ago

I used Alpine as the guest OS in VirtualBox VMs. It was useful when I was learning about Docker. It helped me compare containers to virtual machines.

SeamusBrady 9y ago

I use Alpine for the VM at the heart of my GPL WordPress tool InstantWP (https://www.instantwp.com https://www.instantwp.com). I spent six months reviewing all the smaller distributions of Linux until I found one that would boot fast enough to be usable with QEMU. It works like a charm and i rock solid. I highly recommend it.

gvalkov 9y ago

I think it's great on the Raspberry Pi [0]. It boots quickly, has a low footprint and runs in diskless mode by default [1]. I most recently used Alpine and a RPi to make an appliance of sorts, that would wait for the SSID of my Olympus WiFi-enabled camera (it acts as an AP) to show up and then sync all new photos automatically [2]. [0]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi [1]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation#Installation_Handbook [2]: https://github.com/gvalkov/olympus-photosync-server

braderhart 9y ago

Great project based on Alpine: https://postmarketos.org https://postmarketos.org