Alpine Linux has announced the release of Alpine 3.21, a minimalistic distribution known for its focus on security. This distribution is built on the MUSL system library and Busybox utilities, with SSP protection (Stack Smashing Protection) in place for enhanced safety. OpenRC serves as the initialization system, while APK functions as the package manager for managing software packages. Alpine Linux is commonly used for creating official Docker containers and is a key component in the PostmarketOS project. Users can download ISO-images for various architectures, including x86_64, x86, ArmHF, AARCH64, ARMV7, PPC64le, S390X, RISCV64, and Loongarch64, with different versions ranging from standard (240 MB) to XEN hypervisor (1 GB).
In the new release of Alpine 3.20, the following updates have been included:
- Initial support for the Loongarch64 architecture has been introduced.
- New versions of popular graphic environments like KDE 6.2, GNOME 47, LXQT 2.1, and SWAY 1.10 have been added for users.
- Various packages have been updated, including Linux 6.12, GCC 14, LLVM 19, Node.js 22.11, Rust 1.83, Crystal 1.14, GO 1.23, PHP 8.4, QT 6.8, and .NET 9.0.