documentation/docs/alpine-desktop-setup/graphical-session/session-manager.md

Session manager

To be able to run a graphical enviroment it's necessary to run a seat and session manager. It's recommended to use seatd in conjunction with turnstile and pam_rundir for a minimal setup:

# apk add seatd turnstile pam-rundir
# rc-update add seatd default
# rc-update add turnstiled default

Then make sure pam_rundir exports XDG_RUNTIME_DIR by uncommenting its line in /etc/pam.d/base-session:

session optional pam_rundir.so

And turn off manage_rundir in /etc/turnstile/turnstiled.conf:

manage_rundir = no

Also make sure your user is in the seat group.