# What is Alpine Linux?

[Alpine Linux](http://alpinelinux.org/) is a Linux distribution built around [musl libc](http://www.musl-libc.org/) and [BusyBox](http://www.busybox.net/). The image is only 5 MB in size and has access to a [package repository](http://forum.alpinelinux.org/packages) that is much more complete than other BusyBox based images. This makes Alpine Linux a great image base for utilities and even production applications. [Read more about Alpine Linux here](https://www.alpinelinux.org/about/) and you can see how their mantra fits in right at home with Docker images.

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# How to use this image

## Usage

Use like you would any other base image:

```dockerfile
FROM %%IMAGE%%:3.5
RUN apk add --no-cache mysql-client
ENTRYPOINT ["mysql"]
```

This example has a virtual image size of only 36.5MB. Compare that to our good friend Ubuntu:

```dockerfile
FROM ubuntu:16.04
RUN apt-get update \
    && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends mysql-client \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
ENTRYPOINT ["mysql"]
```

This yields us a virtual image size of about 184MB image.

## Documentation

This image is well documented. [Check out the documentation at Viewdocs](http://gliderlabs.viewdocs.io/docker-alpine).