AlpineKDEPlasmaRPi4.txt

Suitable for RPi4 or RPi400.  Tested with 4GB RAM RPi400 system and 32 GB SD card. 2023-09-12

# THE MACHINE YOU USE TO MAKE THE Alpine Linux SD CARD SHOULD BE BACKED UP FOR 
# SAFETY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

# Download the Alpine Linux for RPi in the aarch64 flavor.  The current stable is a
# good place to start in order to get used to the process.  As of 2023-11-17, stable is at:

https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/latest-stable/releases/aarch64/alpine-rpi-3.18.4-aarch64.tar.gz

# If you intend on using ax.25 packages, they are currently (2023-09-12) found in the
# "edge/testing" area, so be sure to get the "edge" version of Alpine and later enable the testing area in 
# /etc/apk/repositories.  So far, I have yet to figure out WHICH tarball is the correct one for this.
# Upgrading the kernel to the testing level (6.5.2) is not a trivial task for RPi and it is one which
# I have not yet performed or documented.

# Choose an SD card with a size of at least 32 GB. I use a Windows box to get it ready.  
# Load the SD card in the Windows machine and then use the Win button or click Start 
# button and type 'diskmgmt' <Enter> to start the disk utility. 
# Find the removeable drive you just plugged in and ensure the disk size matches up.  BE SURE!!  
#
# Now left click to select each partition on that disk and then right click and choose
# 'Delete Volume'.  Do this for ALL partitions until you have one large unallocated
# space.  BE CAREFUL!  Sometimes the window will scroll on you and hide the SD card
# volume.  BE CAREFUL !  Always triple-check that you are deleting what you think you are
# deleting.

# Now right click on the unallocated space of the drive and create a 'Simple Volume'
# give it 512 MB of size and in the next screen, choose 'FAT32' as the type.  All
# of the rest of the choices can be left defaulted.  It will take only a second or
# two for diskmgmt to make the little partition.  MAKE A NOTE OF THE DRIVE LETTER
# WHICH HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO THIS SD CARD. (such as E: F: or G:)

# Close the diskmgmt tool.

# The SD card should still be mounted on the Windows machine so if your system has 
# the 'tar' tool on it, open a cmd.exe box and use tar to put the alpine....tar.gz
# file contents onto the SD card's newly created partition.  Open a cmd.exe box on
# the Windows machine and type 'tar <Enter>' to see if tar is installed.  If so, then
# Type <DriveLetter>: <enter>  example: 
F:<Enter>
tar xfzf c:\path\to\the\tar\alpine<whatever>.tar.gz
# Example:
G:\>tar xvzf c:\users\mitch\Downloads\alpine-rpi-3.18.3-aarch64.tar.gz

# This will extract a bootable installer system onto the SD card.

#### THIS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO GET THOSE FILES ONTO THE SD CARD SO IF YOU ARE USED
#### TO USING SOME OTHER WAY, THE ONLY ADVICE IS TO ENSURE THAT THE 512 MB 
#### PARTITION IS CREATED AS A FAT32 PARTITION....THEN PROCEED

# Load the SD card into the RPi and power it on to begin the boot process.
# You should be presented with a login prompt.  The login to use is "root" with no
# password. This will be set to a valid password in the next step.

# Then start the script named:

setup-alpine

# Answer the questions.  They are typical of a Linux installation process.

# DURING THIS PROCESS YOU MUST CREATE A NORMAL USER ACCOUNT ON THE SYSTEM FOR THE
# DESKTOP TO USE LATER.  There will be a prompt for this after you change the root
# password.

# When you see "No disks available.  Try boot media /media/.....? (y/n) [n] 
# ANSWER y

# >>>>>>>>>>> You will perform a "sys" installation <<<<<<<<<<<< THIS IS IMPORTANT, so
# when you are asked which type of install ensure you type 'sys' at the prompt.

# You should now see a list of disks, usually only something like "mmcblk0 (31.7 GB)" or similar
# which represents the inserted SD card.  Type in "?" or that disk name and press Enter.  You 
# will then be led through the erasure and re-building of that disk which is where
# the setup-alpine script installs the system to the SD card.

# NOTES: 

# For the United States, the keyboard is "us" then "us" again.  Other countries, you
# likely know the drill.

# Time zone defaults to UTC which is what I used on my radio-related system.  Do what
# you like here.

# When prompted for the time standard package, choose "chrony" (default) because it will
# most easily allow configuration of time standard from a LAN based gpsd installation 
# later if so desired. (details not included here).  See note below regarding configuration
# of the ntp time pool server if your system doesn't seem to get the correct time from ntp.

# Reboot as directed once configuration is complete and all is installed for the "sys"
# installation type (typical disk install).

reboot

# when the system comes back up, there is an adjustment to make for RPi video to 
# work properly, and since you are logged in as root already, may as well do it now.

# !! Login as root again !! with your newly created root password.

# NOTE: IF YOU DON'T DO THIS STEP, THERE WILL BE NO DESKTOP!!!!!
# create a user addendum to config.txt in a usercfg.txt file
echo 'disable_overscan=1' > /boot/usercfg.txt
echo 'dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d' >> /boot/usercfg.txt
echo 'gpu_mem=64' >> /boot/usercfg.txt
# typical desktop can do ok with 64, adjust if necessary later (NOTE: headless use 32)

reboot

# !!! Login as root again !!! 

## add some useful packages of your choice
apk add nano bash usbutils pciutils

# Edit the /etc/chrony/chrony.conf file to fix a bad pool server hostname
# I found that the default chrony.conf file uses pool.ntp.org as the ntp server
# and that didn't seem to work for me, so I used 2.debian.pool.ntp.org instead
# I'm sure there are other hostnames also.  If this is not fixed, then web pages
# will sometimes fail with certs that are in the future from your system time.

# NOW: to install Plasma/KDE use by running:

setup-desktop

# and choose plasma.  This is over 500 packages so takes a while.  (You may of
# course choose another desktop environment as well, which means this
# document ends here.)

reboot

# You should get the standard SDDM login screen for your regular user name
# which you SHOULD have created during setup-alpine above.
# !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT THE BOTTOM LEFT OF THE LOGIN SCREEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
# look for the words, "Desktop Session: Plasma (Wayland)".  Click on this and
# you should see a choice "Plasma (X11)".  Choose the X11, then log in.

# FINI!

############# OPTIONAL STEPS ######################################
# I prefer bash shell and I have a lot of bash scripts, so I edit the
# /etc/passwd file and find my regular user login name and change the last token
# to "/bin/bash" instead of "bin/ash".  Totally optional.

# If you like to use sudo for making administrative changes, you must install it:
apk add sudo

# AND add yourself to the sudoers file by uncommenting one of the two " %wheel ..." lines
# in the /etc/sudo/sudoers file.

# Also add yourself to the dialout and plugdev groups, which makes using USB and
# serial devices easier with Ham radio programs.
usermod -G dialout myusername
usermod -G plugdev myusername

# I am still working out what qt5 packages to get for dev on Alpine, 
# but the following seem to work ok:
## alpine-sdk is the build tools, like build-essential on a Debian or derivative distribution
apk add alpine-sdk qtchooser qt5-qtbase-dev qt5-qtserialport-dev qt5-qtusb-dev qt5-qtx11extras-dev qt5-qtxmlpatterns-dev qt5-qtmultimedia-dev qt5-qtimageformats qt5-qtbase-x11 qt5-qtbase-sqlite qt5-qtbase-postgresql qt5-qtwebsockets-dev qt5-qtwayland-dev qt5-qtsvg-dev

# If you need to build the Qt5 MQTT library get it from github.
## NOTE: this will not install properly unless you have installed the base packages for Qt5 in the step above.
cd
mkdir src
cd src
git clone https://github.com/qt/qtmqtt.git -b 5.15.2
cd qtmqtt
mkdir build
cd build
qmake ../
make -j3
# you are already root so just do make install
make install

# consult the wiki for help on other setup-nnnn scripts
# https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_setup_scripts

# if you need man pages for help
apk add man-db man-pages man-pages-posix

### NOTE: the below probably won't work, so just leaving it here for general reference
### Most likely would need to have installed xfce4 vs plasma for this to function
### as expected.

# lastly, set up tigervncserver if you wish to use the system via VNC on another computer
apk add tigervnc tigervnc-client
cd
vncserver
# that should fail but create ~/.vnc folder
cd .vnc
touch passwd
vncpasswd
# type in password no prompt!  hit enter
# repeat the password, hit enter
# answer "NO" to view only password
vncserver :1
# that should now start it up ok and crank up XFCE also.
# use the tigervnc viewer on some other machine or local windows box to connect