A Debian Journey

"Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it." --- Linus Torvalds

How to install non-free firmware

1. Open file at etc/apt/sources.list

2. Paste the repository source, which in my case is,

   deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian stretch main non-free

   Change 'ftp.de.debain.org/debian' to required mirror

3. Do sudo apt-get install firmware-iwlwifi and sudo apt-get install firmware-realtek

4. Restart the computer.

I broke my SUDO!

1. Gain superuser access
2. Run visudo
3. Append the file with username ALL=(ALL) ALL
4. Close the terminal and you are get to go.

Installing a .deb file

You can install it using dpkg

$ sudo dpkg -i /path/to/deb/file

followed by

$ sudo apt-get install -f

You can install it using apt

$ sudo apt install ./name.deb

or

$ sudo apt install /path/to/package/name.deb

Install gdebi and open your .deb file using it (Right-click -> Open with). It will install your .deb package with all its dependencies.

Why to use sudo apt-get install -f after sudo dpkg -i /path/to/deb/file (mentioned in first method).

 -f, --fix-broken

This attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place. When dpkg install a package and package dependency is not satisfied, it leaves the package in unconfigured state and that package is considered as broken.

sudo apt-get install -f 

command tries to fix this broken package by installing the missing dependency.

Key/PPA Error

Install dirmngr using

$ sudo apt-get install dirmngr

Switching to another DE

• Installed lightdm and sudo dpkg--reconfigure lightdm.
  • Not working. Login as lightdm but after that gdm3 starts action.
  • Removed lightdm and later fixed the issue
  • Now using lightdm and i3wm
• Trying KDE
  • KDE sucks my RAM. Also very bulky and buggy.
  • Not recommended as a DE.
• Using i3-wm with extra plugins.
  • Fell in ❤️.
  • Never going to change it.

Disabling Bluetooth at Startup

# Disable at startup
$ sudo systemctl disable bluetooth.service
# Check status at next restart
$ sudo systemctl status bluetooth.service
# Renable at startup
$ sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service

Kill your Boot Time!

Tricks

1. systemd-analyze to instrument the boot.
2. systemctl to exclude processes from boot.
3. bootchart is still useful for drawing pretty graphs
4. Don’t enable services you don’t need.

Links : 4-second boot / Systemd Optimisation

What did I do?

• Reduce boot loader delay.

  $ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

  Set GRUB_TIMEOUT = 0

  $ sudo update-grub

• Looking at systemd.

  • Analyse the boot timing.

    $ systemd-analyze plot > plot.svg
    # Gives a Damn Beautiful Graph

  • For stopping NetworkManager-wait-online service

    $ sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager-wait-online.service
    Removed /etc/systemd/system/network-online.target.wants/NetworkManager-wait-online.service.

  • Change Time syncing.

    $ sudo systemctl disable systemd-timesyncd.service
    $ sudo apt-get install chrony
    $ sudo systemctl enable chronyd

Git-ing the SSH

First create a rsa key using ssh-keygen and add it to the github account Then, you are all set!!

For the already existing repository using HTTP protocol use the below one liner Only for github users!!

$ git remote set-url origin $(git remote show origin | grep "Fetch URL" | sed 's/ *Fetch URL: //' | sed 's/https:\/\/github.com\//git@github.com:/')

$PATH

This is bash script to check the given directory is in your PATH. In this case, we are checking ~/bin is a PATH variable.

[[ ":$PATH:" == *":$HOME/bin:"* || ":$PATH:" == *":~/bin:"* ]] && echo "~/bin is in PATH" || echo "~/bin is not in PATH"

If not, we can add it to the PATH by the following script.

$ echo 'export PATH=~/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc
$ source ~/.bashrc

xbacklight not working

xbacklight is a utility to control the brightness. (By function keys or similar binding keys)

Note : xbacklight only works in Intel. Other drivers are not supported.

If you get No outputs have backlight property error, it is because xbacklight

does not choose the right directory in /sys/class/backlight.

The following steps are used to configure xbacklight properly.

1. Check backlight directory: ls /sys/class/backlight. In my case, I have intel_backlight

2. Run xrandr --verbose to get the identifier for the backlight. Mine happened to be 0x42

3. Check for xorg.conf in /etc/X11/. I didn't find one and made my own with the above information.

   Section "Device"
   	Identifier "0x42"
   	Driver "intel"
   	Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
   EndSection
   

4. Reboot the system.

For Other drivers, use packages like brightnessctl or light

X11 or Wayland?

To check whether you have X11 or Wayland use,

loginctl show-session $(loginctl | grep $(whoami) |awk '{print $1}') -p Type

Enabling tapping on Touch pad

This was a issue I faced in the Debian + i3wm setup and it can be solved by the following steps. (Assuming the system have lightdm as Display Manager and libinput as the input driver.)

• Make a file named 40-libinput.conf in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d directory

• Paste the below content to it.

  • Section "InputClass"
            Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
            MatchIsTouchpad "on"
            MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
            Driver "libinput"
            Option "Tapping" "on"
    EndSection

• Restart the system by,

  • systemctl restart lightdm

BTW, I use Arch

Didn't have time to go got pure Arch, so tried Manjaro (i3 community edition) and it is amazing.

locale issue

Most uses(like me) don't even properly setup the locale configuration. To set locale do any of the following:

1. Using Manjaro Settings Manager
2. localetcl by systemd
3. (Or go full nerdy by) manually editing /etc/locale.gen and runlocale-gen and then setting locale with /etc/locale.conf file.