The Alpine Linux project has shipped Alpine Linux 3.24.0, the first release of the new 3.24 stable series, on June 9, 2026. Alpine is one of the lightest and most popular Linux distributions around, best known for how much it gets used in Docker containers and in infrastructure where size and security come first.
Alpine is a minimalist distribution built around the musl libc library and BusyBox rather than the usual GNU tools. That choice gives it a tiny base system that boots fast and exposes a small attack surface. It is the default pick for container images, embedded systems, routers and servers where every megabyte counts, and it still ships full desktop environments for anyone who wants a lean, fast desktop machine.
What’s new in Alpine Linux 3.24.0
The new stable series brings major updates to its core packages along with some welcome installer improvements:
- Updated desktops: GNOME 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6 (with Qt 6.11), plus the Wayland compositor Sway 1.12 for tiling fans.
- New COSMIC desktop: the COSMIC desktop environment, built by System76, lands in the community repository and can now be installed on Alpine.
- Modernized toolchains: Rust 1.96, Go 1.26 and LLVM 22, keeping Alpine current for software development and compilation.
- Improved installer:
setup-alpinenow supports the Limine boot loader and has gained IPv6 support. On top of that, when you install from a serial console, the boot loader and kernel configure themselves with serial console support, which is very handy for headless installs. - Other updates: GRUB 2.14 and nginx 1.30 are among the refreshed components in this release.
The series also clears out obsolete packages. GTK+ 3.0 moves to community-only, the old GTK 2 and Qt5 packages go away alongside libsoup 2, and the qemu-binfmt service is deprecated in favor of binfmt.d configuration files.
As usual with Alpine, this release will keep getting maintenance updates and security patches for the lifetime of the 3.24 series.
You can find all the details, requirements and download links on the Alpine Linux page at LinuxGratis.