title: Running Alpine Linux from USB on the Raspberry Pi 3
---
pub_date: 2021-12-31
---
body:

``` sh
# Tested on Raspberry Pi 3
# Create a Raspberry pi OS SD card
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo rpi-update
echo program_usb_boot_mode=1 | sudo tee -a /boot/config.txt
reboot

# At this point the boot flag is enabled
# Prepare the USB

# Install Alpine to USB Drive
# Format USB
# Create two partitions:
# - boot fat16
# - root ext4
tar xzvf ~/Downloads/alpine-rpi-3.12.1-armhf.tar.gz

# boot/usercfg.txt:
enable_uart=1 # Not sure I need this
gpu_mem=32 # The minimal memory for the bootloader

setup-alpine
apk update
apk add cfdisk e2fsprogs
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

# Setup proper TZ
apk add tzdata
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Madrid /etc/localtime
echo "Europe/Madrid" >  /etc/timezone
apk del tzdata

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
setup-disk -m sys /mnt
mount -o remount,rw /media/sda1

rm -f /media/sda1/boot/*
cd /mnt
rm boot/boot # Remove symlink

mv boot/* /media/sda1/boot/
rm -rf boot
mkdir media/sda1

ln -s media/sda1/boot boot

# /mnt/etc/fstab
# Remove cdrom
# Add:
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 vfat default 0 0

# Edit boot cmdline to boot from the ext partition
# /mnt
```