Ditch Windows 11 and try Alpine Linux 3.22 with GNOME 48 and Plasma 6.3
Alpine Linux 3.22 is finally here (download), and if you’re tired of bloated operating systems like Windows 11, this release might be the breath of fresh air you’ve been waiting for. While Alpine is still a niche distribution, it’s slowly becoming a viable option for power users who want speed, control, and simplicity.
Despite being known as a lightweight distro often used in containers and servers, Alpine 3.22 brings some serious desktop upgrades. It now includes GNOME 48, KDE Plasma 6.3, and LXQt 2.2. Even the XFCE desktop got some love, with updated packages like xfce4-panel 4.20.4, thunar 4.20.3, and more. It’s clear Alpine is not just for the command-line crowd anymore.
On the development side, this release delivers modern tools including LLVM 20, Rust 1.87, Go 1.24, Ruby 3.4, and Node.js 22.16 LTS. There’s also support for Crystal 1.16 and Docker 28, showing Alpine still prioritizes staying up-to-date without sacrificing its core values.
There’s also an important technical change under the hood. The OS has dropped gummiboot in favor of systemd-efistub for EFI booting in Secure Boot setups. But don’t panic as Alpine hasn’t adopted full systemd. This is just a small stub to handle booting and won’t bring the rest of that complexity with it. If you didn’t customize your secure boot config, you won’t have to do anything.
Behind the scenes, developers have been busy. Some changes, like security upgrades for kea and new build options for Node.js, were tested, reverted, and then revised properly. This kind of constant hands-on maintenance is what helps Alpine stay stable without becoming stale.
Other notable updates are:
- GNOME Text Editor 48.3
- Evolution Data Server 3.56.2
- LibreSSL 4.1.0
- Removal of deprecated Python packages like py3-numpy1
Obviously, Alpine Linux isn’t for everyone. There’s no flashy installer and no hand-holding. Quite frankly, it is not a good choice for first time Linux users. However, if you’re have some Linux experience and you’re looking for something fast, secure, and truly lightweight, Alpine 3.22 could be a smarter pick than Windows 11.