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Alpine Linux releases version 3.16

Alpine Linux releases version 3.16

Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution designed to be small, simple and secure. Unlike most other Linux distributions, Alpine uses musl and BusyBox instead of the more commonly used Glibc and GNU Core Utilities and OpenRC for its init system instead of systemd

Version 3.16.0 of Alpine Linux is out – one of the most significant of the many lightweight distros.

Version 3.16.0 is worth a look, especially if you want to broaden your skills.

Alpine is interesting because it's not just another me-too distro. It bucks a lot of the trends in modern Linux, and while it's not the easiest to set up, it's a great deal easier to get it working than it was a few releases ago.

The version number sounds like a small step, but its version numbering is a little different, too. Alpine Linux 3.0.0 came out way back in 2014, meaning that the number after the first decimal is a significant step. The project describes this as "the first in the 3.16 stable series", meaning that soon 3.16.1 will appear, then 3.16.2 and so on.

This version has better support for NVMe disks, and includes a new script to make it easier to install a desktop. The installation program, while remaining extremely minimal, now adds user accounts, including readable names, and can import SSH keys for them too.

As with most new distro versions, it also updates lots of core components, including a swath of current programming languages, and a choice of GNOME 42, KDE 5.24, or Xfce 4.16. This version also drops Python 2 and PHP 7.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Various improvements in the setup scripts:
  • Better support for NVMe
  • Administrator user creation
  • Possibility to add SSH keys
  • New setup-desktop script for easy install of desktop environment
  • Go 1.18
  • LLVM 13
  • Node.js (current) 18.2
  • Ruby 3.1
  • Rust 1.60
  • GNOME 42
  • KDE Plasma 5.24 / KDE Applications 22.04 / Plasma Mobile Gear 22.04
  • Python 3.10
  • PHP 8.1
  • R 4.2
  • Xen 4.16
  • Podman 4.0

SIGNIFICANT CHANGES

  • sudo has been moved to community repository, which means that only latest stable release branch will get security updates in the future. Suggested replacement is doas and doas-sudo-shim.

UPGRADE NOTES

  • As always, make sure to use apk upgrade --available when switching between major versions.
  • Both shadow-login and util-linux-login provides login-utils with this release. The preferred implementation is from util-linux.
  • NetworkManager plugins have moved to subpackages and are no longer installed by default. Users may need install plugins to not lose network connectivity.
  • The ICU data has been split into icu-data-en (default) and icu-data-full packages. Users may need to install icu-data-full for non-English locales or legacy charset converters support.

DEPRECATION NOTES

  • php7 was removed.
  • python2 was removed.

CHANGES

The full list of changes can be found in the wiki, git log and bug tracker.

Alpine 3.16.0 released | Alpine Linux
Alpine Linux
Alpine Linux