Skip to content

Debian Linuxλ︎

Debian Linux provides support for the widest range of hardware of any Linux distribution.

The Debian project established the high-quality .deb package system which ensures all packages are consitenly defined and manage dependencies.

Installλ︎

Debian provides ISO images which can be burned onto compact disks or USB memory sticks.

The net install image is small and quick to download, containing only the essential packages to run an operating system.

Copy the Debian Linux ISO image to a USB of 1GB size or larger

Create USB install disk from Debian ISO file

cp debian.iso /dev/sda
Creating USB install disks with non-Debian images

Find the name of the USB stick 

ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb-*

Copy the image using the name of the USB Stick 

dd bs=4M if=path/to/filename.iso of=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-My_flash_drive conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress
Arch Linux: ISO image command line utilities

Post Installλ︎

root vs sudoλ︎

Debian recommends using the root account to administer the system, rather than using sudo as with Ubuntu

su - command in a terminal changes to the root user, upon entering a successful root password at the prompt

su -

root password is set during install of Debian

Dedicated terminal for root account

Open a terminal application specifically to use the root account when carrying out significant maintenance, e.g. installing many packages during the post install.

Install & Configure sudo for Debian Linux

The sudo page on the Debian Wiki describes how to install sudo, should that approach be acceptable.

Install sudo package, using root account

apt install sudo

Add account-name to sudo group, using root account

adduser account-name sudo

Set XDG freedesktop locationsλ︎

# Set XDG_CONFIG_HOME for clean management of configuration files
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:=$HOME/.config}"
export XDG_DATA_HOME="${XDG_DATA_HOME:=$HOME/.local/share}"
export XDG_STATE_HOME="${XDG_STATE_HOME:=$HOME/.local/state}"
export XDG_CACHE_HOME="${XDG_CACHE_HOME:=$HOME/.cache}"
export ZDOTDIR="${ZDOTDIR:=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh}"

Git installλ︎

apt install git

Clone practicalli/dotfilesλ︎

clone to projects/practicalli/dotfiles

Git configureλ︎

link .config/git to Practicall dotfiles/git directory

ln -s ~/projects/practicalli/dotfiles/git ~/.config/git

Update identity-practicalli-john file with annonymous email address from GitHub settings > Emails section

Kitty Terminalλ︎

Debian packages

  • kitty
  • kitty-doc
  • kitty-shell-integration
  • kitty-terminfo
  • fonts-firacode use by Practicalli Kitty terminal
apt install kitty kitty-doc kitty-shell-integration kitty-terminfo fonts-firacode

Link to practicalli/dotfiles/kitty in .config directory

ln -s ~/projects/practicalli/dotfiles/kitty ~/.config/kitty

Zshλ︎

Install zsh package

apt install zsh

Zsh Configurationλ︎

Prezto and OhMyZsh are community created configurations that provide a rich experience with very little work.

Prezto recommended

Practicalli recommends Prezto as it has excellent completion capabilities, especially wish fish mode enabled.

OhMyZsh is used within Termux as Prezto has not worked correctly in my experiences.

Prezto provides sane defaults, aliases, functions, auto completion, and prompt themes.

As the user account, zsh command to change to zsh from bash shell

check if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set, if not set to $HOME/.config on command line (practicalli dotfiles has a zshenv that does this later in process)

clone prezto to XDG location

Clone Prezto to XDG_CONFIG_HOME

git clone --recursive https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto.git "${ZDOTDIR:-${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/zsh}/.zprezto"

export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:=$HOME/.config}"
[[ -d $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh ]] && export ZDOTDIR="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh"
source "$ZDOTDIR/.zshenv"

Generate symbolic links to the zsh configuration files residing in the prezto directory

setopt EXTENDED_GLOB
for rcfile in "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}"/.zprezto/runcoms/^README.md(.N); do
  ln -s "$rcfile" "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.${rcfile:t}"
done

Practicalli creates custom configuration files to keep updating Prezto a simple Git pull.

  • .zprezto practicalli customisations for Prezto
  • .zprofile includes .local/bin on execution path
  • .zshrc aliases for neovim configurations (astro, practicalli
  • .zshenv configures XDG locations
.zprezto
.p10k.zsh
.zlogin -> /home/practicalli/.config/zsh/.zprezto/runcoms/zlogin
.zlogout -> /home/practicalli/.config/zsh/.zprezto/runcoms/zlogout
.zpreztorc -> /home/practicalli/projects/practicalli/dotfiles/zsh/.zpreztorc
.zprofile -> /home/practicalli/.config/zsh/.zprezto/runcoms/zprofile
.zshenv -> /home/practicalli/projects/practicalli/dotfiles/zsh/.zshenv
.zsh_history
.zshrc -> /home/practicalli/projects/practicalli/dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc

Change the default shell

chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh

Neovimλ︎

Practicalli Neovim install

See the install guide in Practicalli Neovim book

Required packages

  • curl - suggested by neovim checkhealth
  • gdu
  • xclip provider for accessing operating system clipboard from Neovim
  • luarocks required for some mason installed tools
  • lazygit terminal UI git client used by AstroNvim
apt install curl gdu lazygit luarocks xclip

btm is suggested but not available as a Debian packages

Nodejsλ︎

Nodejs is required for many of the linters installed by Mason.

node and npm are available as packages, although the npm package has a great many dependencies (many of which seem redundant).

Download from nodejs website

Extract to ~/.local/apps/nodejs

Create a symbolic link to make it simpler to use alternate versions of node and npm

ln -s ~/.local/apps/nodejs/node-v18.17.1-linux-x64/ ~/.local/apps/nodejs/current

Create symbolic links for node and npm to add them to the OS excecution path

ln -s ~/.local/apps/nodejs/current/bin/node ~/.local/bin/node &&
ln -s ~/.local/apps/nodejs/current/bin/npm ~/.local/bin/npm &&

If a different version of nodejs is installed, then all that should be required is deleting and recreating the current symbolic link in ~/.local/apps/nodejs/ to point to the desired version.

Releasesλ︎

Download latest appimage for neovim from Neovim repository releases page

Make Neovim executable

chmod u+x nvim.appimage

Add Neovim to shell execution path

mv nvim.appimage ~/.local/bin && \
ln -s ~/.local/bin/nvim.appimage ~/.local/bin/nvim

Edit .config/zsh/.zprofile and add $HOME/.local/bin to paths to search for executables

Set the list of directories that Zsh searches for programs.

Zsh paths searched for executable files

path=(
  $HOME/.local/{,s}bin(N)
  /opt/{homebrew,local}/{,s}bin(N)
  /usr/local/{,s}bin(N)
  $path
)

Use the source command to load the changes in .zprofile to update the path and include the .local/bin path

Load configuration into current shell session

source .config/zsh/.zprofile

Configure nvimλ︎

Clone astronvim configuration and Practicalli Astronvim configuration

Add aliases to .zshrc to call different neovim configurations

Shell Aliases for neovim multiple configurations

alias astro="NVIM_APPNAME=astronvim nvim"
alias lazyvim="NVIM_APPNAME=lazyvim nvim"
alias practicalli-redux="NVIM_APPNAME=neovim-config-redux nvim"

Practicalli Neovim - Multiple Configurations

Date and Timeλ︎

The date command on Linux systems is used to show the system date or set a specific date and time. The system date can only be changed by the root account or accounts in the sudo group.

When using the Gnome desktop the system date is automatically managed, keeping the date and time current.

The timedatectl command is used to control automatic updating of the system time. This must be disabled to set the date and time to something other than the current.

Disable automatic date-time

timedatectl set-ntp 0

When the timedateclt is disabled, then the date command can be used to set a specific date and or time.

Set the date and time

 date -s '2024-09-16 21:32:00'

date command will show the current date, confirming that the OS system date was changed.

Enable automatic date-time

timedatectl set-ntp 1

Linux used to use the ntp service which is available via the Debian ntp package, but not used by Gnome desktop

Add Sid packages on Testingλ︎

Packages can be installed from sid (unstable) when the testing version of Debian Linux is installed, referred to as "Testing-Unstable Mix".

Configure apt to ensure a testing system stays on testing, without apt upgrading every package to the unstable version.

Define testing as the default Debian release

Set Default Release as testing with security updates

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20-tum.conf
APT::Default-Release "/^testing(|-security|-updates)$/";

In the Apt sources.list configuration, copy the main testing line and change the version to unstable

Add unstable to package sources

/etc/apt/sources.list
# Testing
deb <http://deb.debian.org/debian/> trixie main contrib non-free-firmware non-free
deb-src <http://deb.debian.org/debian/> trixie main contrib non-free-firmware non-free
deb <http://deb.debian.org/debian/> trixie-updates main contrib non-free-firmware non-free
deb <http://deb.debian.org/debian/> trixie-backports main contrib non-free-firmware non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free-firmware
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free-firmware

# Sid
# deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free-firmware non-free

Run apt update to refresh the cache. Use apt -t unstable install <package-name> to install package foo from unstable rather than testing.

Install specific package from Sid

```shell apt -t unstable install hyprland

Debian Trackerλ︎

Tracker service indexes many types of files to enable discovery of files by other Gnome services and applications.

  • desktop search
  • Tag database for keyword tagging
  • Extensible metadata database to add custom metadata to files, e.g. rhythmbox, gedit, etc.
  • Store First Class Objects and the Gnome 3.0 Model

NOTE: when actively using Gnome desktop and Gnome apps, disabling the tracker may reduce functionality

Disable the tracker serviceλ︎

The tracker service can be a significant drain on computer resources as it indexes files, especially when there have been a log of changes or for a newly installed system.

The tracker has many dependencies, so its not easy to remove the tracker-miner-fs-3 package when actively using the Gnome desktop.

The recommended approach is to edit the .desktop files and add Hidden=true at the end of each tracker related file and reboot the operating system.

/etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-fs-3.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Tracker File System Miner
Comment=Crawls and processes files on the file system
Exec=/usr/libexec/tracker-miner-fs-3
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
X-GNOME-HiddenUnderSystemd=false
# X-KDE-autostart-after=panel
X-KDE-StartupNotify=false
X-KDE-UniqueApplet=true
NoDisplay=true
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;KDE;XFCE;X-IVI;Unity;
X-systemd-skip=true
Hidden=true

If adding "Hiddent=true" is not sufficient, then disable the services for all users by setting them to /dev/null using the systemctl command.

sudo systemctl --global mask tracker-miner-fs-3.service
sudo systemctl --global mask tracker-xdg-portal-3.service

Remove the database of indexed files from each user account on the system

rm -rf $HOME/.cache/tracker*
```