🏔️ alpinest

alpinest is a rootless userland Alpine Linux environment, inspired by junest, but based on Alpine instead of Arch.
It lets you run a full Alpine Linux environment from any Linux distribution, with no root privileges required.

✨ Features

• No installation required: works from a regular user directory.
• Based on proot: no root permissions needed.
• Fully isolated Alpine Linux environment.
• Use apk to install packages inside the Alpine root.
• Supports multiple independent versions side-by-side.
• Automatically uses your current working directory when launched.

🚀 Quick Start

sudo apt install curl tar proot
git clone https://github.com/vroby65/alpinest.git
cd alpinest
./alpinest

(Optional) Add it to your PATH:

sudo ln -s "$(pwd)/alpinest" /usr/local/bin/alpinest

Make sure /usr/local/bin is in your $PATH.

🧰 Requirements

• Linux
• proot
• curl
• tar

📦 Usage

Start the Alpine environment:

./alpinest

Install packages using apk:

apk add git build-base

Exit the environment:

exit

⚙️ Running Commands Without a Shell

You can use alpinest to run a single command directly inside the Alpine environment without launching an interactive shell.

Examples:

alpinest micro
alpinest make build
alpinest bash -c 'echo Hello from Alpine!'

This works similarly to docker run or chroot: the command is executed inside Alpine with your current directory mounted and used as working directory.

If no arguments are given, alpinest will start an interactive shell instead.

🔒 Security

alpinest is fully rootless — everything runs with your current user permissions. No changes are made outside the Alpine folder.

📁 Directory Structure

• alpinest — main launcher script
• .alpinest/ — contains the downloaded Alpine Linux system
• etc/, tmp/ — optional local customizations

🧪 Use Cases

• Quickly test scripts or binaries in a clean Alpine environment
• Build .apk packages without Docker or VMs
• Try Alpine without affecting your main OS

alpinest provides a minimal Alpine-based environment designed for running CLI and GUI applications in a rootless sandbox using bubblewrap. It is ideal for:

• Running isolated command-line tools
• Testing graphical applications without polluting the host
• Building or compiling software in a clean Alpine base
• Scripting automated workflows with persistent storage

Note: To run graphical applications properly, you must install fonts. For example:

alpinest apk add fontconfig ttf-dejavu

⚠️ Warning

Currently, Chromium and Firefox do not work inside alpinest due to limitations of proot, which prevent proper sandboxing and shared memory access required by these browsers.

As a result, attempting to launch them will likely result in crashes or unexpected behavior.

📄 License

MIT License

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alpinest is an independent project and is not affiliated with Alpine Linux or junest.