How to Install Alpine Linux on Raspberry Pi

by TechWizYouTube

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Intro: How to Install Alpine Linux on Raspberry Pi

In this Instructable, I'm going to show you how to install Alpine Linux on your Raspberry Pi.

If you enjoy this Instructable, consider checking out my TechWizTime YouTube Channel.

And for a good source of Raspberry Pi products, check out my Raspberry Pi Amazon List.

Let's get started!

STEP 1: What You’ll Need


  1. Raspberry Pi
  2. Alpine Linux
  3. 8GB MicroSD Card
  4. 7Zip

NOTES: The Raspberry Pi 3 requires a 2.5A power supply so make sure you have one that is capable. I highly recommend Samsung Micro SD Cards due to a technology called Wear Leveling which greatly increases the life span of the memory card

STEP 2: Download the Alpine Linux Image

Go to alpinelinux.org to Download the latest Alpine Linux Image available.

Click on the “Downloads” button. Scroll down until you find “Raspberry Pi” then click on the “armhf” to download the Image.

STEP 3: Copying the Image

After we’ve downaloded the image, we’ll get a “.tar.gz” file, which we’ll extract using 7Zip.

Extract it agin with 7Zip and you’ll have a folder with the Image files inside.

Copy the files inside that folder and move them to your MircroSD Card.

Once that’s done you can extract the MicroSD Card form your pc and insert it into your Raspberry Pi.

STEP 4: Setting Up Alpine Linux

Once you’ve booted into Alpine Linux, you’ll need to properly configure it.

Log with the user “root”. Type “setup-alpine” (Both without quotation marks).

You’ll be prompted with a series of question you’ll need to answer to properly configure Alpine, answer them using the prompts on the screen. IE: To select the US type of keyboard on “Keyboard configuration” Type “US”. Once you finish answering the questions, Alpine Linux will be fully installed and configured in your Raspberry Pi.

Our Alpine Linux installation is completed and that’s it for this tutorial. If you’ve installed Alpine Linux, have any suggestions or had problems during the installation, please leave a comment.

If you enjoy this Instructable, consider checking out my TechWizTime YouTube Channel.

And for a good source of Raspberry Pi products, check out my Raspberry Pi Amazon List

6 Comments

JPierre76 4 years ago

Greetings,
I am desperately looking for installing AlpineLinux on Aarch64 from an ISO. The ISO exist for x86_64 only.
Cheers,
Jimmy

ando777 5 years ago

Nice it works on my RPI. Does anyone know how to get Alpine Linux running on Olimex-boards ?? I have an A20-OlinuXino-LIME2 - Olimex board here. It does not work with this instructions for Lime2...

AdamP205 6 years ago

Well, on each reset, the data will be lost. It needs more steps.

HéberteF 6 years ago

After setup-alpine, must run 'lbu commit -d' to persist changes. Look here https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

abreuma 7 years ago

For noobs like me, why would someone want to use this version of Linux vs Raspian?

RobertH488 7 years ago

It's a lightweight distro, which means it uses less space on your SD card and has far less services installed by default.

With a smaller OS footprint you have more compute power available to you to run additional applications on the device.

So probably not the easiest to setup for a noob, but isn't the pi made for tinkering?...