General-purpose musl+LLVM Linux distribution. dinit init, Oil packages. Boots to login in <1s on native virt (x86_64 KVM or aarch64 HVF).

Two deployment modes:

• Diskless/immutable — initramfs-only, RAM root, GlowFS overlay (appliance mode)
• Rootfs — normal root-on-disk (ext4/btrfs/zfs), package-managed

scripts/boot-native.sh           # build + boot initramfs (QEMU)
system/backends/appliance/scripts/qemu.sh   # boot existing build

Platform support:

• x86_64 — main branch (primary target)
• aarch64 — arch/aarch64 branch — QEMU virt, Apple Silicon HVF
• riscv64 — arch/riscv64 branch — QEMU virt, OpenSBI
• Rockchip RK3566 — board/rk3566 branch — PINE64 Quartz64

Quick Start

# Initramfs (diskless) mode — build + boot in QEMU
./scripts/boot-native.sh

# Rootfs mode — install to disk
curl -L alpenglow.example.org/installer | sh   # or:
oil install alpenglow-core

# Custom kernel
KERNEL_BUILD=1 ./scripts/boot-native.sh

Design

Project Layout

system/
  backends/
    appliance/          Primary profile (kernel configs, dinit services, scripts)
  kernelctl-zig/        Cgroup + kernel policy (Zig, 89KB static)
  netd/                 Network state daemon (Rust, zero deps)
  glowfsctl-zig/        GlowFS image tooling (Zig, 164KB)
  oil/                  Package manager (Rust, APK-compatible)
  glowfs/               GlowFS kernel module source (C+Rust)
  kernel-modules/       Rust kernel modules (alpenglow_core, alpenglow_bootstat)
  init/                 Zig init (4.8KB static, initramfs fallback)
scripts/                Build, CI, benchmark scripts
docs/                   Architecture, build, install docs

Kernel configs live at system/backends/appliance/kernel/.

Performance

Boot to login (QEMU KVM, quiet)

Alpenglow minimal (Zig init, 4.8KB) boots in 0.6s on x86_64 KVM. The standard build (dinit + toybox + getty) is 1.3s. Alpine matches boot speed but has 6000x larger initramfs and 3x the RAM. Both modes use the same toolchain — the difference is just initramfs contents.

Binary size (static musl, x86_64)

Modes

Alpenglow runs in two deployment modes sharing the same codebase:

Diskless/Appliance — boot from initramfs, root in RAM (tmpfs), state on persistent partition. Uses GlowFS squashfs for verified immutable root. Target: embedded, edge, kiosk, containers.

Rootfs/Desktop — install to disk (ext4 over LUKS), normal r/w root. dinit manages services, Oil installs packages. Target: workstation, server, development.

The init script auto-detects mode: if /dev/disk/by-label/alpenglow-root exists, it switches root; otherwise runs diskless. Both modes use the same kernel, toolchain, and package format.

Services

Status

21/22 milestones complete. Last milestone: real hardware boot (QEMU only for now).

See AGENTS.md for full milestone table and docs/ for architecture docs.