Alpine Linux

Reader supplied reviews for Alpine Linux Average rating 8.7 from 40 review(s) Please select a rating in the range of 1-10. Please write at least a few sentences about the distribution while limiting your review to 4080 characters. What are your thoughts on Alpine Linux? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 3.21.33.20.63.19.73.18.123.17.103.16.93.15.113.14.103.13.123.12.113.10.63.6.23.2.22.7.81.10.6 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 3.21.3 Rating: 7 Date: 2025-03-24 Votes: 0 Alpine, by itself alone, is truly the best distribution by far I' ve tried so far, but it has some points to be improved. I'm reporting as a desktop user, more specifically running Plasma (which works very nice). Pros: - The fastest distribution I've ever tested (in between Arch, BigLinux, Xiva Studio, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, OpenSUSE); - It is quite easy to "build" from instalation, because online reference is very good and has those very helpul "setup-something" scripts; - You get exactly what you set up on it (no bloats in any way); - OpenRC init (I have nothing against systemd, but, this is the best distro I've tested that not rely on systemd for its init process); - Flatpak (which is needed here, see below); - Stable, very stable if you don't enable the edge repository; - Fast, almost touch sensitive distro to use, with very efficient base (with musl and BusyBox, and apk, the best package manager I've seen on any O.S.). Cons (or, to be improved): - It has few applications in its repositories, enough for average use, but I miss some applications I can use in Arch or Mint, for example, leading me to user flatpak version of some apps; - Lack of support, you basically have the online guide to solve issues, even the issues link on webpage has issues (it opens to me a blank page with an empty table); - No proper Nvidia support (because of Nvidia itself not supporting musl C library) for proprietary driver; - No language support (even Plasma doesn't allow any aditional locale/language besides C.UTF-8). I really wish the devs would consider take this distro as a desktop O.S. with more priority, because even with these problems it's still very clean and pleasant to use. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 3.21.3 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-02-17 Votes: 18 Alpine Linux is hands down the best distribution I've ever used. After two years of relentless distro-hopping and trying nearly every distro out there, I finally discovered Alpine and fell in love. Now, all of my machines run it, and I couldn't be happier. Alpine excels in versatility—it's perfect for gaming, schoolwork, web browsing, and more. With over 25,000 packages available in its repositories, it offers a lightweight yet an amazing and powerful experience. The only drawback I've encountered is its hardware compatibility; it doesn't support NVIDIA systems, which prompted me to build a new PC to fully enjoy its benefits. In terms of performance, I've found Alpine to be on par with, if not better than, CachyOS and Gentoo based on my experience. I highly recommend giving Alpine Linux a try Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 3.21.0 Rating: 6 Date: 2024-12-31 Votes: 7 At first, I fell in love with Alpine Linux. It used less RAM, was fast (it booted in a few seconds), and my experience with apk was pleasant. After trying it on physical hardware for a month or so though after getting bored of using Arch, I encountered many issues and had to make a bunch of compromises (which will be listed below). Some general information before we get into this: I have a pretty beefy computer, with a 9900k, 1050 Ti, and 32GB of RAM, and I also was using the alpha channel for packages. At the time (around two months ago), I was obsessed with making my computer use the lowest amount of memory possible. What was great: * apk was fast, and easy to use (best package manager I have come across) * Booted in a few seconds * Consistently used less than 1GB of memory with a bunch of programs open, without any (just my desktop) 250MB (got as low as 154MB with 9wm). * Used next to no storage What wasn't all that great: * Nouveau didn't work at all (X11 would refuse to start) * Setting up even integrated graphics was a hassle and took nearly an entire week for me to figure out * I was starting on C#, but sadly I could not install any programs (or vim language servers) which provided syntax highlighting and feedback (such as VSCodium) so I had to go without it * Minecraft (which I only really use for graphical testing these days), would not launch beyond version 1.18.2 * Occasionally, my monitor would start flashing as if the refresh rate was configured incorrectly when set to 60hz * As an extension to that, at 165hz the screen was weirdly dimmed, and at 144hz everything was fine * A pretty major one right off the bat: the installer wouldn't boot, so I had to install Alpine completely manually from Arch. It was for sure a cumbersome experience! * On top of all of that though, Alpine has a nearly nonexistent support community. Due to that, I had to figure out how to either solve my problems, or make less functional compromises. After this experience, I went back to Arch. I definitely miss apk and everything I liked about Alpine, but the issues I had were simply too major for me to stay. I personally am giving Alpine a 6/10 as I very much enjoyed everything but the issues I had with it. If this was on a VM though, I would have definitely given it a 10/10! Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 40 reader reviews of Alpine Linux...