HowTo: Finit on Alpine Linux 3.4-3.6
====================================

HowTo use Finit to boot an [Alpine Linux][] system.  It is assumed that
the user has already installed make, a compiler, C library header files,
and other tools needed to build a GNU configure based project.

To start with you need to first install [libuEv][] and [libite][].  They
default to install to `/usr/local`, but unlike Debian and Ubuntu based
distros, Alpine's `pkg-config` does not look for libraries and header
files there.  So the `PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR` environment variable must be
used, or change the install prefix to `/usr`.

The bundled [build.sh](build.sh) script can be used to configure and
build finit:

    alpine:~# cd finit
    alpine:~/finit# ./contrib/alpine/build.sh

Then run the [install.sh](install.sh) script to install all necessary
files, including the sample `finit.conf` and `finit.d/*.conf` files.
More on that below.

    alpine:~/finit# ./contrib/alpine/install.sh

The install script is non-destructive by default, you have to answer
*Yes* twice to set up Finit as the system default init.  Pay close
attention to the last question:

    *** Install Finit as the system default Init (y/N)?

If you answer `No`, simply by pressing enter, you can change the symlink
yourself later on, to point to `finit` instead of `/bin/busybox`:

    alpine:~/finit# cd /sbin
    alpine:/sbin# rm init
    alpine:/sbin# ln -s finit init

Before rebooting, make sure to set up a [/etc/finit.conf](finit.conf),
and [/etc/finit.d/](finit.d/) for your services.  Samples are included
in this directory.  Notice the symlinks in `/etc/finit.d/`, which can be
managed by the operator at runtime using `initctl enable SERVICE`.  You
can also use a standard [/etc/rc.local](rc.local) for one-shot tasks and
initialization like keyboard language etc.

[libuEv]: https://github.com/troglobit/libuev
[libite]: https://github.com/troglobit/libite
[Alpine Linux]: https://www.alpinelinux.org/