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Installing Debian for the first time. Wish me luck! (lemmy.ml)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Edit: It works! Not beautiful and shows a concerning amount of "Error" lines on startup but it will do. I got VSCodium and ESP-IDF running, at least – and CMake isn't awfully slow despite it being a crappy 4GB RAM machine (not easily upgradeable). The first boot took a while and I haven't rebooted since, I guess it will be below 30 seconds next time (Mint on same machine but HDD was about 1 minute).

Edit: I hope I chose the right kernel here, surprisingly not much info online on this! Also, I picked "targeted" because the 10-year-old system does not use any cutting-edge hardware and all drivers should be auto-detected, I think.

After some experience with Linux Mint, I gathered the courage to try another distro. I'd like to turn an old laptop into an IPTV receiver plus FTP/OpenVPN/HomeAssistant server with occasional desktop use. I first installed Windows 11 just in case my family needs to use it (it fucking sucks, the built-in PS/2 keyboard doesn't work half the time but that's an issue for later) but now I'll be turning it into a dual-boot setup with Debian as the primary option. Please give me some encouragement, I'm really afraid of new things.

Old pic: https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/d4bf0222-4fc1-42ab-a3e9-464087dec3af.png

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[–] 43 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

I hereby grant the application for luck. May your linux boot,

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    You make it sound religious. Did i join a religion deccades ago and not knowing it?

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    If we say yes, do you think we can get tax exemptions?

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    [–] 30 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    No luck needed, it'll go fine. You pretty obviously have all the experience you need.

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    Experience? Yes, but I'm also really clumsy and impatient. Lots of things, hardware and software, broke in my hands because I wasn't careful enough. At least there is no personal data on the system right now that I could erase.

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    • [–] 25 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Just a little warning if you boot both OS from the same drive. Windows update can and will break your bootloader at one point (if not worse, tho that's rare). Keep a Linux live or rescue stick around in case something breaks.

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    • [–] 24 points 8 months ago

    You don’t need luck. You chose wisely.

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    [–] 21 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    I love Debian. Been using it on my laptop for over a year. Some specific drivers are a little fiddly if you have nvidia graphics but it's not too bad, lots of good info on the debian wiki.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    same here even though i don't use it much anymore.

    for me, it was both the distro that i had used the longest at home due to rock solid stability and it's become a signal to me that the shop i'm considering working in has rock solid people working on it.

    i'm going to miss working on debian in a professional capacity and watching it due it's thing in real world production capacities for millions of people at a time.

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    [–] 18 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    It's Debian. Let us know when you have your first real issues with it, probably some time in 2037.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    I had a fair amount of issues back in the day due to debian having limited support for newer hardware with proprietary drivers. I wouldnt be surprised if that still a thing given Debian's modus operandi.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Debian now prompts users if they want non free drivers in the installer, and the installer it self comes with them so it can boot on platforms that require it, non free drivers and firmware are also in a seperated repository to non-free and enabling them is independent, selecting non free drivers in the installer will enable the non free driver and firmware repository

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    [–] 10 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    This shouldn't be a thing of luck, if you are prepared.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    No, I'm absolutely not. What desktop environment should I choose? KDE Plasma is tempting - it would be nice to use it before I install it with Arch on my main system - but I don't need the cutting edge or much personalization. I know XFCE best but GNOME is default... GNOME's big launcher looks great for the TV but it's also more resource-hungry and less customizable...

    I guess I'll go with the familiar Windows-style XFCE and maybe add big remote-friendly icons later when I configure an IR receiver.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    What desktop environment should I choose

    That's the beauty .... You can change any time you want (sudo tasksel) withjout losing your data. or install all of them and choose one each time you login

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    I have been using Gnome for a few weeks (because I have an issue with my tablet and Plasma works badly with it), and it's shit. Very locked in, strange choices regarding how information is presented, waste of screen estate (topbar that sits completely unused)... Plasma was a million times better. If I didn't have this tablet problem... anyway that's my advice. Have fun. Debian is stable, you should be good

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I love this, because I feel the complete opposite in some regards. I love the simplicity of GNOME. There are some weird UI decisions; I much prefer to have the dock available on the desktop than to use the application switcher every time, but that's about it. GNOME is very thematically consistent, it's simple, and it works smoothly. It has enough customisation where the sensible defaults fall short, at least for me, but theme-wise I really like Adwaita the way it is.

    I use KDE on my laptop though, and I enjoy the tinkering with it. Feel like it's fairly unstable though, Plasma just crashes at times when you tinker with it (though so far it's never happened in normal usage). Design-wise it feels much too cluttered, but there's a lot of options to play with to make things at least almost the way I'd like it.

    We're spoiled for choice, and that's awesome. There's something for everyone.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I have used gnome, plasma, and xfce and they are all fine. I prefer KDE personally but they're all going to do what you need to do. It's all down to personal aesthetic preference, and picking one won't hinder you in any real way. KDE to me just looks super nice out of the box for my taste, and I like the customization.

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    • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I recently helped a friend install Debian via sms, it was surprisingly easy, and she had never tried installing Linux before. When installing on a laptop I'd recommend using cable instead of wifi, and then setup wifi when the system is up and running.

    Best of luck

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    • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    If it’s 10 year old hardware, you should be fine.

    I’ve only had problems in Debian with brand new hardware where I have to use the backport branch to get drivers (like for wifi.)

    Though mainly I use Ubuntu, where I would not have that problem. Not sure why you switched from mint.

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    [–] 5 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Good luck! And don't forget to add the non-free-firmware repo and maybe the other additional ones if you need them. A standard Debian comes without. And if you're following an old tutorial, that might not cover the split between non-free and non-free-firmware which happened somewhat recently in Debian terms. Their own documentation is good and up to date, though.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Isn't non-free-firmware included by default now?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Good question. maybe I was wrong, I've used Debian for so long, I'll either just update it or use the advanced installer... It's certainly on the installation media now. Not sure if it copies it over to the system. Would make sense, though if it did...

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    • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Mint is solid, if you use it and it works for you why change? Do you need to bother with windows? What do you use that can't be done on Linux I wonder? Perhaps work out how to set a VM and try out Debian and even windows in a test sandbox so you're comfortable with the processes before taking the plunge. Check out KVM, QEMU, and Virt-Manager.

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    [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    I just made the switch from Win 10 to Bazzite Linux some two weeks ago. It worked so great that I should have done it a long time ago.

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    [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    My usual approach when trying Debian on a desktop or workstation: if I have to install a single package from testing or sid, fuck this and just use Arch or Fedora.

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    [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Obligatory you should use Arch btw.

    (Good luck)

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

    I'll be installing Arch on my main laptop when I make the disk space and get the motivation (my mental state is almost as messy as the drive). I'll also take the opportunity to reinstall Windows because it's an old copy where I chose my real name as the user directory name (I didn't know better back then), with a space and diacritics, which broke lots of things. But this is a server and I preferred Mint to Manjaro so Debian it is.

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    • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I like it so far.

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