Minimalistic Alpine Linux 3.15 Distribution Release

Available Release Alpine Linux 3.15 minimalist distribution built on the basis of the MUSL system library and a busybox utility set. The distribution is characterized by increased security requirements and assembled with SSP protection (Stack SMashing Protection). OpenRC is used as an initialization system, its own package manager APK is used to manage packets. Alpine is used to form official docker containers. Boot ISO images (x86_64, x86, armhf, aarch64, armv7, ppc64le, s390x, MIPS64) prepared in five versions: standard (166 MB), with a nucleus without patches (184 MB), expanded (689 MB) and for virtual machines (54 MB).

In a new release:

  • Added disk encryption support.
  • It is possible to install third-party kernel modules via akms (analogue of DKMS, which makes a rebeling of external kernel modules after the distribution package with the kernel is updated).
  • For the X86_64 architecture, the UEFI Secure Boot support is proposed.
  • Supply of the kernel modules in a compressed form (used GZIP).
  • Drivers for Framebuffer are disabled in the kernel and replaced with the SIMPLEDRM driver.
  • Due to the design stagnation, QT5-QTWEBKIT has been deleted and related packages.
  • terminated support for the MIPS64 port (architecture is recognized as outdated).
  • updated versions of packages, including the releases of Linux 5.15 kernels 5.15, LLVM 12, GNOME 41, KDE PLASMA 5.23 / KDE Applications 21.08 / Plasma Mobile Gear 21.10, Nodejs 16.13 and 17.0, PostgreSQL 14, OpenLDAP 2.6, Ruby 3.0, Rust 1.56, OpenJDK 17, Kea 2.0, Xorg-Server 21.1.
/Media reports.