Alpine Linux supports IBM System z (Linux on z)

Hello everyone,

I am pleased to announce that since its version 3.6.0, Alpine Linux project starts support IBM System z, aka Linux on z, aka Linux s390x. Alpine Linux v3.6.0 rc2 (release candidate 2) has been released today.

You can try it out by registering an account at IBM LinuxONE Community Cloud and run it in Docker as follow:

$ wget http://dl-4.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/releases/s390x/alpine-minirootfs-3.6.0_rc2-s390x.tar.gz -O - | sudo docker import - alpine:3.6-rc2

$ sudo docker run -ti alpine:3.6-rc2 sh

One extra step above is due to Alpine Linux team only provides Docker image for official releases, not release candidates. Besides, you can also run Alpine 3.6 Docker image created by IBM System z team (which is practically the same as above) by running :

$ sudo docker run -ti s390x/alpine:3.6 sh

Since Alpine 3.6 is in its testing period, any bug reports are welcome and highly appreciated. You can either directly reply in this thread, or email me at tmhoang [at] flatglobe [dot] org, or report to #alpine-linux IRC channel on Freenode.

Thank you,
Tuan


Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox. It is simple, small and secure. Its Docker images are effectively around 2 MB when compressed. Recently, Docker Inc. has adopted Alpine Linux as its base image, in favor to Ubuntu.

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Love to hear about potential use cases…

1 Like

Hello,

Alpine Linux is an independent, non-commercial, general purpose Linux distribution designed for power users who appreciate security, simplicity and resource efficiency.” The most notable security feature is a hardened, specially patched Linux kernel

Thanks & Regards,
Anita