No, as my main OS on my laptop and any other computers. I had better luck and a better experience over Void and Artix, and I'm not interested in systemd based distros.
> what security feature they ship???
The focus on minimization is a security feature given it reduces attack surface area. I'd say embrace musl wholeheartedly is another (as an example, Alpine sshd wasn't vulnerable to that big remote root vuln from last year). They have a general commitment to security as a priority that I don't think most distros share, which I appreciate.
I'm still dealing with figuring out how to dodge regreSSHion on Windows so this piqued my interest, I haven't had the occasion to compare glibc and musl, but this post is illuminating [0]
Honestly, I have had very few issues with it. Generally for the big issues there compatibly layer packages available, e.g. you can install a musl-fts package since musl doesn't implement fts.
I think there is value in a cleaner, newer, more minimal c library. Pretty much everything just works, and for what doesn't I either compile statically in a devuan container or use a flatpak.
Perhaps off-topic, but as someone who shares dissatisfaction with all things Poettering:
Using Void on my main desktop has been fun and I've learned a lot about how modern Linux systems fit together whether I liked it or not, because the instructions for using ZFS root at that time involved starting mostly from scratch.
But I feel like a lot of people who use Void are using it mostly-headless, and that this means when something does go wrong then I'm in mostly uncharted territory.
How does Alpine compare in the day-to-day business of using a computer, do you suppose?
> Using Void on my main desktop has been fun and I've learned a lot about how modern Linux systems fit together whether I liked it or not, because the instructions for using ZFS root at that time involved starting mostly from scratch.
This is why I used Slackware 20 years ago. Slackware then tried to compete with Ubuntu and Fedora and IMO lost its way.
> How does Alpine compare in the day-to-day business of using a computer, do you suppose?
For day to day usage I think there are similairities, but I can share some reasons I prefer Alpine:
- Not rolling release, possible to stick to a version and just get security updates
- Focus on minimization. A minimal Alpine install is about 500mb, 700 after I install X and my WM and a few other core things. A void install was something like 1.2gb even trying to keep it minimal.
- Because Alpine, IMO is more dedicated to musl, the ports to musl have more care behind them and seem to work better, just anecdotal maybe biased experience.
- I prefer apk over xbps, one thing xbps can't do afaik is search files in packages, e.g. apk search library.h will return a result if it exists.
- I still feel void gets in the way more than it needs to. Installing or overriding a bootloader and custom kernel was easier in Alpine then void, only barely, but enough I noticed.
There are folks using Alpine in the desktop (or laptops). Several of us are lurking in #alpine-linux.
postmarketOS is a downstream of Alpine, and they focus on shipping ready to use GUI images. They also count as Alpine users in terms of testing and fixing packages related to a GUI session.
No, as my main OS on my laptop and any other computers. I had better luck and a better experience over Void and Artix, and I'm not interested in systemd based distros.
> what security feature they ship???
The focus on minimization is a security feature given it reduces attack surface area. I'd say embrace musl wholeheartedly is another (as an example, Alpine sshd wasn't vulnerable to that big remote root vuln from last year). They have a general commitment to security as a priority that I don't think most distros share, which I appreciate.