1---
2title: "Alpine set up for daily driver"
3date: 2022-12-10
4tags: ['alpine', 'linux']
5---
6
7# Installation Process
8
9
10## Disable secure boot
11
12First, always check for secure book. If it is enabled you won't be able to boot
13your thumbdrive.
14
15## setup-alpine
16On the official wiki[^1] there a more complete guide on how to setup, and will
17probably be more accurate than this one, so always refer to that wiki first.
18This is more a log of how I setup.
19
20Once you boot your live installation run `setup-alpine` and follow the steps:
21
22* _Select keyboard layout_: **us**
23
24* _Select keyboard variant_: **us**
25
26* _Enter system hostname_: **gridx.local** [This is my choice, if you don't know
27 what exactly is this go for the default **localhost**]
28
29* _Which one do you want to initialize?_: **wlan0** [I chose wlan0, since it is
30 a laptop I don't have it connected to cable]
31
32* _Type the wireless network name to connect to_: **\<NAME\>**
33
34* _Type network key_: ******
35
36* _Ip address for wlan0_? **dhcp** [and for the following device I have chose
37 none since I won't use them anyways]
38
39* _Do you want to do any manual network configuration_? **n**
40
41* _Changing password for root_: ******
42
43* _Which timezone are you in?_ **Europe/Berlin**
44
45* _HTTP/FTP proxy URL?_ **none**
46* _Which NTP client to run?_ chrony
47* _Enter mirro number?_ **f** [I pick this one to speed up things a bit, default
48 one is fine as well]
49
50* _Set an user?_ **\<NAME\>** [Since we aiming to be a desktop create your user here]
51
52* _Full name for user \<NAME\>:_ **\<FULLNAME\>**
53* _Type password_: ******
54
55* _Enter ssh key or URL for \<NAME\>?_ **none** [this is a public key so you can
56 ssh into this machine]
57
58* _Which ssh server?_ **openssh**
59
60* _Which disks would like to use?_ **\<DISK\>** [now you are going to set up the
61 disk for installation]
62
63* _How would you like to use it?_ **crypt** [I like to use encrypted disks, I
64 strongly advice for it, but in case you don't want, go for sys directly]
65
66* _How would you like to use it?_ **lvm**
67
68* _How would you like to use it?_ **sys** [more info[^2]]
69
70* _WARNING: Erase the above disks and continue?_ **y**
71
72* Enter passphrase for \<DISK\>: ******
73
74Once you have finish the step run `reboot`.
75
76## Desktop environment
77
78Now comes the "hard" part, where we need to configure the desktop. For me, I'm
79going for i3wm with lightdm.
80
81To be able to install all the necessary packages we will need to enable the
82community repository[^3]. To edit it I use vim
83
84```bash
85apk add vim
86# then
87vim /etc/apk/repositories
88```
89and uncomment the `.../community`
90
91```bash
92#/media/cdrom/apks
93http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.16/main
94http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.16/community
95#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main
96#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community
97#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing
98```
99
100Then run `apk update` and you will see the both repositories printed out.
101
102Now we will install the necessary drivers for `xorg` to run properly. Firs
103search for all video drivers `apk search xf86-video*` and install whatever you
104have for you computer (in my case `apk add apk add xf86-video-amdgpu`)
105
106* `apk add mesa-dri-gallium mesa-va-gallium mesa-egl`
107* `setup-xorg-base`
108* `apk add lightdm-gtk-greeter`
109* `setup-devd udev`
110* `rc-update add dbus`
111* `rc-update add lightdm`
112
113* `apk add terminus-font`
114* `dbus-uuidgen > /var/lib/dbus/machine-id`
115* `rc-update add dbus`
116* `apk add i3wm i3status xterm i3lock`
117* `add user <NAME> input`
118* `add user <NAME> video`
119* `reboot`
120
121[^1]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation#Questions_asked_by_setup-alpine
122[^2]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Installation#The_general_course_of_action
123[^3]: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Repositories#Enabling_the_community_repository