Debian is a well-known rock-solid Linux distribution. Because of its stability over many rolling and semi-rolling linux distributions, many LTS-based Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Tails, Kali Linux, etc. chose debian as a base.
Even though Debian is much more mature and stable, by default it is designed for older hardware-based systems and don't give a good performance on modern hardware out of the box.
Today I would like to give you some advice on how to make Debian. excellently supported enough to daily drive on your modern hardware system. Let's dive in.
Enable Sudo Access.
The first thing to do is enable sudo access for the user currently. logged in if you didn't do it while in the installation process.
Open the terminal and log in as root:
> su -
Add the username to the sudo group:
> usermod -aG sudo <-username->
Log out, then log back in or just perform a reboot.
Enable contrib, non-free, and non-free-firmware repositories.
Access the Debian official repositories file.
> sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the contrib, non-free, and non-free-firmware keywords exactly as given below:
> deb https://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free
non-free-firmware
> deb https://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib
non-free non-free-firmware
> deb https://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security
main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Update repositories:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Install Essential Packages
Especially for modern hardware, we have to ensure that microcode, graphic drivers and power management tools are installed to prevent throttling and high power usage.
Note: This varies for the processor you are using. I am using an Intel i5 processor, so installing tools required for Intel-based systems.
Install microcode and drivers
> sudo apt install intel-microcode firmware-misc-nonfree
intel-media-va-driver-non-free mesa-va-drivers firmware-linux
firmware-linux-nonfree
Install hardware monitoring tools
> sudo apt install lm-sensors intel-gpu-tools
Power management tools
Here I am going to instruct you to install a power management tool called TLP. If you are okay with the default power Management tools power-profiles-daemon skip this step.
> sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdw thermald
Caution: Installing tlp alongside power-profiles-daemon auto uninstalls power-profiles-daemon. You cannot use both at the same time.
Enable TLP services and thermald:
> sudo systemctl enable --now tlp.service
> sudo systemctl enable --now thermald
Check the current status by using the following:
> tlp-stat -s
Configure touchpad and gestures (Wayland).
> sudo apt install libinput-tools
Multimedia codecs and hardware acceleration
> sudo apt install ffmpeg gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-libav vainfo
Verify hardware acceleration using:
> vainfo
Firmware updates using the fwupd package
You can easily do all updates, including apt, flatpak, and firmware, via plasma-discover software. If you prefer manual checking of firmware updates via terminal, then you can use this method.
Download the fwupd package:
> sudo apt install fwupd
Check for updates:
> fwupdmgr refresh
Get available updates:
> fwupdmgr get-updates
Apply updates:
> fwupdmgr update
Install and set up Flatpak.
Install flatpak:
> sudo apt install flatpak
Add the Flathub integration plugin for gnome-software in gnome:
> sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
Add the Flathub integration plugin for Plasma Discover in KDE:
> sudo apt install plasma-discover-backend-flatpak
Add the Flathub repository:
> sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub
https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Now reboot the system. That's it; everything works perfectly.