Debian operating system

😃

I've been running systems up to Buster and have always had the 'quiet' option in the grub settings to show the regular service startup messages (the colored ones showing [ok] and such but not all the dmesg stuff). I just upgraded a server to bullseye and there are zero messages being displayed now except an immediate message about not being able to use IRQ 0. Worse, google can't seem to find any information on this. If I remove the quiet option from grub then I see those service messages again, along with all the other stuff I don't need.

What is broken and how do I fix this issue? I assumed it would be safe to upgrade by now but this seems like a pretty big problem if I ever need to troubleshoot a system.

[Edit] In case anyone else finds this post searching for the same issue… Apparently the trick is that now you MUST install plymouth, even on systems that do not have a desktop environment. For whatever reason plymouth has taken over the job of displaying the text startup messages now. Keep your same grub boot parameters (quiet by itself, without the splash option) and you will get the old format of startup messages showing once again. It’s been working fine the old way for 20+ years but hey let’s change something just for the sake of confusing everyone.

[Edit 2] Thanks to marvin below, I now have a final solution that no longer requires plymouth to be installed. Edit /etc/default/grub and add systemd.show_status=true to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. In my case to full line is:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet systemd.show_status=true"

Don't forget to run update-grub after you save your changes.

Running Bookworm, Plasma DE if that's relevant.

Background: I'm learning here. Decent amount of coding and embedded hardware experience but I'm usually missing one or two key concepts with this stuff.

Getting a box running, and wrestling with NVIDIA drivers. I successfully installed the driver (I think), but now lightdm isn't working. From what I read it appears there's a common issue around a race condition where lightdm tries to fire up before the drivers ready, so I need to add the nvidia driver to initramfs.

Can anyone give me some pointers? Specifically while I get the above:

1. I'm not sure what modules need to be added and if they're named something specific for debian vs other distros
2. The correct file to modify
3. The correct format/syntax that needs to be added

I've found lots of examples, just none specific to debian, and screwing around at this level I don't want to bork something enough I need to do a bare install.

Thanks for any help!

Edit: Solved for now, going to use Flatpak Steam and Flatpak Lutris to automatically use recent Mesa versions from freedesktop-sdk.

I recently switched from Arch to Debian Stable and so far I've been able to get updates for everything I actually need to keep modern from Flatpaks, Homebrew, personal backporting, compiling from source, etc. It's going well, and I think that stable base + a dozen cutting edge pieces of software is a better strategy for a modern desktop in general than something like Arch, where the entire system is bleeding edge.

The one thing I'm not sure about is getting a recent Mesa version - right now it doesn't matter much, but the Mesa that shipped with Bookworm was already half a year old on launch, so it might be 2.5 years old by the next release. If I end up wanting a newer Mesa version at some point before the next release, is there a recommended way to do it? I've read that backporting Mesa doesn't work very well, so it's probably not going to be a backport in the future.

I've found this script to build a local Mesa environment and allow arbitrary applications to use it instead of the system version, and it seemed to work well in a VM with some tests. You can specify which Mesa version to build, so I'm planning on building the latest stable Mesa branch if needed (e.g. not an x.x.0 release).

It seems like this is the way to go, but I'm wondering if anyone else has dealt with this problem before, and what the recommended path to solve it is if so. As before, I'm not sure I'll need a new Mesa in the next 2 years, but if I do I want to have a plan ready that doesn't push me to move to Sid or a new distro.

For newcomers and experienced people.

Everything that is somehow related to Debian can go in here.

If you are interested, please share this link for this room https://simplex.chat/contact#/?v=1-4&smp=smp%3A%2F%2Fhejn2gVIqNU6xjtGM3OwQeuk8ZEbDXVJXAlnSBJBWUA%3D%40smp16.simplex.im%2F9qOMeGL2HgMCDCZ1G6GDw0uI9JIzIBHC%23%2F%3Fv%3D1-2%26dh%3DMCowBQYDK2VuAyEAAhYJRP2-VnRiIOapCcmXpat2byJIb_XSlX95oIHy7xg%253D%26srv%3Dp3ktngodzi6qrf7w64mmde3syuzrv57y55hxabqcq3l5p6oi7yzze6qd.onion&data=%7B%22type%22%3A%22group%22%2C%22groupLinkId%22%3A%22NYwp2h1tY2L8xXGOApn2UA%3D%3D%22%7D

I have updated packages many times after 12.1 release, but I still have 12.0 in debian_version file. I tried to install today printer drivers but it couldn’t get the latest libcupsimage2 2.4.2-3 library on the server although there is 2.4.2-5 already.

How to fix the version? Is it possible that it breaks cupsimage installation?

Hi everyone,

For the life of me, I cannot install hplip on Debian bookworm.

Here is what I get when I run apt install hplip-gui:

Unpacking printer-driver-postscript-hp (3.22.10+dfsg0-2) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-jEfRdO/7-printer-driver-postscript-hp_3.22.10+dfsg0-2_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/cups/filter/hpps', which is also in package hplipclassdriver 3.23.5
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-jEfRdO/1-libsane-hpaio_3.22.10+dfsg0-2_amd64.deb
 /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-jEfRdO/2-printer-driver-hpcups_3.22.10+dfsg0-2_amd64.deb
 /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-jEfRdO/5-hplip_3.22.10+dfsg0-2_amd64.deb
 /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-jEfRdO/7-printer-driver-postscript-hp_3.22.10+dfsg0-2_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any help would be appreciated.

P.S I tried installing hplip using the run file provided by HP, but I ran into other issues. Bookworm doesn't seem to be supported yet.

Is it possible to upgrade a Debian 8 (Jessie) to 9, 10, 11 and eventually 12? It is reccomended to upgrade one release at a time. But! 9's repositories are archived. How can I upgrade form 8 to 9?

Thank you in advance!

I've just switched from Fedora to Debian 12 and I can't seem to get bridge networking to work. I've followed the official guide and edited the /etc/network/interfaces. I double checked and everything is correct. I rebooted the system but my ethernet stopped working altogether. Are there any updated guides and common pitfalls that I should keep in mind. I need the bridge for kvm.

No official announcement yet, but today's point release has gone live. I just updated 112 packages.

I'm currently unable to install Debian using the latest netinst from https://www.debian.org/distrib/, when selecting any "Install" option, the screen glitches.

Looking up the issue in the internet, it seems Debian is trying to launch the wrong resolution, some users suggest using the "Help" option in the menu to do something related to VGA but there is no such option on my screen.

Another user successfully Debian by actually editing their ISO to include the correct resolution... sorry if that's what it takes to install Debian, then I won't.

I'm not interested in the liveusb version as it is heavily bloated, if anyone knows of a command to trim down the live version to be the same as the netinst, I may try the Live CD.

Been trying to install distrobox on debian 12 but have been running into several issues. Is debian 12 not compatible with debian 12?

I've seen different opinions on this. Some people will certainly be looking for community-maintained distributions since they are unlikely to undergo a change like this. In particular some sysadmin Youtubers (like Veronica Explains) have been saying that they are switching their clients over. But others have been saying that Debian won't really have too much of a chance as they don't offer the same amount of professional support. What do you think?

Here’s a little script I use for every fresh install I do. It isn’t ground breaking stuff, but it saves me the hassle of diving into settings and finding all the check boxes to check. Here it is:

# Set Gnome Clock to AM/PM Mode
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-format '12h'

# Enable Fractional Scaling
gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

# Add Minimize and Maximize buttons
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'

# Display Battery Percentage
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true

# Enable Tap to Click
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click true

# Enable Natural Scrolling
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.mouse natural-scroll true
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad natural-scroll true

# Install Flatpak
sudo apt install flatpak

# Add Flathub repository
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

# Install GNOME Software plugin
sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak

To finish making gnome into a comfortable home for me, I also manually install the dash-to-dock and blur my shell gnome extensions.

Also note that I used to run into a bug with some apps and the fractional scaling option turned on. Even with the scaling set to a round number, apps like Vivaldi would be blurry when fractional scaling was enabled. When I had that issue I'd disable it and use gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1.2 instead.

Recently, I found myself needing the latest Firefox version, specifically version 115, for its GPU accelerated video capabilities. My machine isn't the most powerful, so this feature was a game-changer for me. With previous Firefox versions, I was limited to 1080p for smooth video playback or could manage 1440p, but with occasional stuttering. Even worse, my computer would become extremely sluggish during this.

However, with Firefox v115, I can now smoothly run 4K video at 10% CPU utilization (max) without any issues. Even 8k is smooth, though CPU usage jumps to 80%+.

didn't want to remove Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), so I decided to install the latest Firefox version alongside the default ESR.

Here are the commands I used to install the latest Firefox version:

cd /opt

# Download the latest version of Firefox
sudo wget -O firefox.tar.bz2 "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest&os=linux64&lang=en-US"


sudo tar xjf firefox.tar.bz2

# Create a symbolic link
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

# Create a desktop entry for GNOME
echo -e '[Desktop Entry]\n Version=1.0\n Name=firefox\n Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox\n Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png\n Type=Application\n Categories=Application' | sudo tee /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

Additionally, I wanted to easily differentiate between the two Firefox versions on my machine. To do this, I created a .icons directory in my home directory and downloaded an appealing Firefox PNG icon from here.

I then updated the icon line in /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop to use my newly downloaded icon. Now, I can easily distinguish between the two versions at a glance.

Everyone is getting jerked around by IBM and now Oracle adding to the drama

Meanwhile my servers are stable and debian development keeps quietly chugging along with minimal noise

Just wanted to say how much i love the debian project and all the contributors

People should recommend debian more

So i did my update today. Due to plasmashell being broken for me right now. I had to roll back, thank you Timeshift. So it got me wondering what day of the week works best for you all to update?

Currently on Fedora Kinoite I have a relatively long pkglist function I use to track any changes I do.

As you can see, I can use 4/5ths of this function on Debian, but following the reference manual on a virtual machine gave me a veeery long list. I'm investigating this further but I wonder if you guys have something easy prepared.

function pkglist -d "Gets list of installed packages"
  # Prevent descriptions in other languages
  set -l LANG C
  # Define pkglists location
  set -l dot $HOME/.config/dotfiles

  echo "(1/5) RPM-OSTREE status"
  rpm-ostree status > $dot/pkglist.rpm-ostree --booted

  echo "(2/5) Identify flatpaks"
  flatpak list --app --columns=application > $dot/pkglist.flatpak

  echo "(3/5) Identify pinned flatpak runtimes"
  flatpak pin > $dot/pkglist.flatpak.pinned

  echo "(4/5) Identify flatpak overrides"
  for i in (cat $dot/pkglist.flatpak)
      if test -s (flatpak override --show --user $i|psub)
	  echo $i
	  flatpak override --show --user $i
	  echo
      end
  end > $dot/pkglist.flatpak.overrides

  echo "(5/5) Save KDE configuration"
  fedora konsave -s kde_configuration --force

  # to apply configuration
  # fedora konsave -a kde_configuration

  git -C $dot st
end

I've found myself immersed in RPM land for so long that I seem to have forgotten the "proper" way of doing things. I jumped ship for Debian 12 before the recent Red Hat nuttiness, but I wanted to keep Gnome 44.

To install Gnome 44 and took the following steps:

1. Added the following lines to the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list:

deb http:ftp.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main 

2. Ran apt update (without upgrade) and proceeded to install Gnome components using the command:

apt install -t experimental baobab eog evince gdm3 gjs gnome-backgrounds gnome-calculator gnome-characters gnome-contacts gnome-control-center gnome-disk-utility gnome-font-viewer gnome-keyring gnome-logs gnome-menus gnome-online-accounts gnome-remote-desktop gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-software gnome-system-monitor gnome-text-editor gnome-user-docs mutter gnome-desktop3-data

3. Additionally, I executed the command:

sudo apt-mark auto baobab eog evince gdm3 gjs gnome-backgrounds gnome-calculator gnome-characters gnome-contacts gnome-control-center gnome-disk-utility gnome-font-viewer gnome-keyring gnome-logs gnome-menus gnome-online-accounts gnome-remote-desktop gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-software gnome-system-monitor gnome-text-editor gnome-user-docs mutter gnome-desktop3-data

(Note: I discovered these commands from a now deleted Reddit post, but they aligned with my previous experiences with Fedora and BSD.)

4. Finally, as a precautionary measure, I commented out both lines in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list to avoid inadvertent updates in the future. Fortunately, everything went according to plan, and I'm currently using Gnome-Web on Gnome 44. However, in hindsight, I realize I should have conducted more research before diving in. Now, I'm curious to know if there was a more optimal approach to achieve the same outcome. Is there a better way to I could have gotten the specific newer packages?