Alpine on X1 Carbon Gen 6

This is how I setup my x1c6 with alpine (3.23) linux + the gnome desktop.

Install

• download the alpine std x64 iso
• write the iso to a usb: dd if=alpine-standard-3.23.3-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=1M
• reboot and press F12 to enter the boot menu
• select the usb drive and press enter

Initial Setup

Once alpine has booted run setup-alpine. Here are some of the settings I used:

setup-alpine
# keymap: us
# key loayout: us
# hostname: HOSTNAME
# interface: wlan0/SSID/PASSWORD/done
# root pass: 
# timezone: Canada/Eastern
# HTTP/FTP Proxy: none
# NTP: busybox
# apk mirror: dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org
# user: USER
# pass: ...
# ssh key: none
# ssh srv: none
# disk: ...
# how use: sys
# reboot

Setup doas (as root)

Post reboot I setup doas for my USER and updated the system:

• add permit persist :wheel as root to /etc/doas.conf
• add my user to wheel adduser USER wheel
• reboot

Configured repos and updated

After setting up doas I logged in as my USER and did the following:

• uncommented the community line in /etc/apk/repositories
• ran doas apk update && apk upgrade
• reboot

Add some software

Before installing the deskop I added some software:

apk add vim
apk add lsblk
apk add htop
apk add fastfetch
apk add plocate && updatedb
apk add git
apk add build-base

Install the Desktop

I chose to setup the deskop with gnome. In the future going to try sway but for now this suits me well.

• login as root
• run setup-desktop gnome
• run apk add dconf-editor
• reboot

fix: network unavailable in settings and no wifi icon in top bar

Right off the bat almost everything worked except showing and setting wifi. I found instructions to replace the networking service with network manager which resolved it.

Open console, su - to change to root, and run the following:

apk add networkmanager
apk add networkmanager-wifi
adduser USER plugdev
# copy the config and "wpa_supplicant backend" config from the wiki to `/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf`
rc-service networking stop
rc-service wpa_supplicant stop
rc-service networkmanager restart
rc-update add networkmanager default
rc-update del networking boot
rc-update del wpa_supplicant boot
reboot

Extras

Install flatpak and sublime text

apk add flatpak
apk add gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak --user search sublime
flatpak --user install com.sublimehq.SublimeText
reboot

Undervolt the cpu for longer battery life

git clone https://github.com/kitsunyan/intel-undervolt.git
cd intel-undervolt && ./configure --enable-openrc && make
doas make install
# set CPU/GPU/CPU Cache to -50 in /etc/intel-undervolt.conf
doas intel-undervolt apply
rc-update add intel-undervolt-loop default
rc-service intel-undervolt-loop restart
reboot

Have nautilus always show the full file path

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true