The project supports both traditional root-on-disk installations and diskless immutable deployments from the same codebase. In diskless mode the entire system runs from an initramfs with a read-only root and optional persistent state. In rootfs mode it behaves like a conventional Linux installation with package management and writable storage.

Alpenglow uses a musl-based userspace, dinit service management, Linux 7.0 (with Rust modules now that it's stable!), and a lightweight package manager called Oil. The system is designed around a small set of components with an emphasis on predictable startup performance and low resource usage.

Current platform support includes x86_64, aarch64, riscv, and experimental RK3566 targets.

Current benchmarks show boot-to-login times of approximately 0.6 seconds in the minimal configuration and 1.3 seconds in the standard configuration on native virtualization platforms.

The project is still under active development. APIs, tooling, package management, deployment workflows, and platform support continue to evolve, and some functionality remains experimental.