Alpine Linux: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:32, 1 December 2017

Revision as of 06:22, 16 December 2017

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* [[Package management]]: Alpine uses its own package management system, apk-tools,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_Linux_package_management|title=Alpine Linux package management|publisher=}}</ref> which originally was a collection of [http://sourceforge.net/projects/apk-tools/ shell scripts] but was later [http://git.alpinelinux.org/cgit/apk-tools.git/ rewritten] in C. Alpine currently contains most commonly used packages such as [[GNOME]], [[Xfce]], [[Firefox]], and others. Typical package installation times are between 1 and a few seconds.

* [[RAM drive|Running from RAM]]: Alpine Linux can be installed as a run-from-RAM distribution. The LBU (Alpine Local Backup)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_local_backup|title=Alpine local backup|publisher=}}</ref> tool optionally allows all configuration files to be backed up to an APK overlay file (usually shortened to ''apkovl''), a tar.gz file that by default stores a copy of all changed files in /etc (with the option to add more directories). This allows Alpine to work reliably in demanding embedded environments or to (temporarily) survive partial disk failures as sometimes experienced in public cloud environments.

* Security: A hardened kernel is included in the default Alpine Linux kernel, which aids in reducing the impact fromof exploits similarand to the [[vmsplice() local root exploit]]vulnerabilities. All packages are also compiled with stack-smashing protection to help mitigate the effects of userland [[buffer overflow]]s.

* Networking: Alpine Linux is the only distribution that as a default includes patches that allow using efficient meshed VPNs using the DMVPN standard.

* Virtualization: Alpine Linux has reliably had excellent support of Xen hypervisors in up-to-date versions, which avoids issues as experienced with Enterprise Distributions. (The standard Linux hypervisor KVM, is also available.)

* Size: theThe base system in Alpine Linux is designed to be only 4–5 [[Megabyte|MB]] in size (excluding the kernel).{{citation needed|date=November 2015}} This allows very small [[Linux containers]], around 8 MB in size, while a minimal installation to disk might be around 130 MB.<ref name="about" /> The Linux kernel is much larger; the 3.18.16 kernel includes 121 MB of loadable kernel modules (primarily drivers) in addition to the 3.3 MB for the base [[x86-64]] kernel image.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

* Alpine Configuration Framework (ACF): While optional, ACF is an application for configuring an Alpine Linux machine, with goals similar to [[Debian|Debian's]] [[Debconf (software package)|debconf]]. It is a standard framework based on simple LUA scripts.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

* [[C standard library]]: Alpine Linux previously used [[uClibc]] instead of the traditional [[GNU C Library]] (glibc) most commonly used. Although it is lightermore weightlightweight, it does have the significant drawback of being [[Binary code compatibility|binary incompatible]] with glibc. Thus, all software must be compiled for use with uClibc to work properly. As of April 9, 2014, Alpine Linux switched to [[musl]], which is partially binary compatible with glibc.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html|title=musl FAQ|publisher=}}</ref>

* [[Init system]]: The simple and lightweight [[OpenRC]] is the init system currently used by Alpine Linux.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_Linux_Init_System|title=Alpine Linux Init System|publisher=}}</ref> Unlike [[Debian]], [[Ubuntu (operating system)|Ubuntu]], [[RHEL]], [[Arch Linux]] and [[CentOS]] distributions of Linux, Alpine does not use [[systemd]].