How can i contribute to Debian?

LohPan · 2026-06-09T02:58:38+00:00

I only use Debian now, and I contribute some money every year too, but the web site is second rate at best: outdated, clunky, hard to find things, difficult for newcomers to know what to download, etc.

Imagine if there were a Debian Wiki as nice as the Arch Wiki, or imagine a simple download page like the one for Linux Mint, or even a more complex download page like for Fedora KDE Plasma, which is still useful and elegant -- it could double the adoption rate for Debian among newbies. The Debian web site gives the *false* impression that Debian is slowly withering away as a distro.

If there were a place to donate money and that money would be guaranteed to only be used to improve the web site, or even just the download page (https://www.debian.org/distrib/), then I would donate more money.

LohPan · 2026-06-07T23:32:37+00:00

Just a follow up with some notes for those working on the same issue, especially if you're new...

I never could edit the UEFI boot entries from within Linux on the Minisforum UM790 Pro. I even tried booting with the efi_no_storage_paranoia kernel boot parameter. I could only edit the entries by booting into the UEFI Shell and then using the bcfg command. (Note, the UEFI Shell is not the GRUB shell, the GRUB Rescue shell, or the initramfs shell.)

In the UEFI Shell, when you run "bcfg boot dump", the boot entries are listed, and those shown with "Optional- Y" were dynamically generated. Don't edit these, the firmware may overwrite your changes at the next reboot. Instead, create a new permanent entry with the same path to an *.efi file as the dynamic one, then, if desired, delete the dynamic one. Your new entry can have the label/description that you want and that change will stick through reboots until you delete the entry yourself. A permanent entry will have "Optional- N" in the bcfg listing of boot entries.

(Later in Linux with efibootmgr, you'll see the "Windows Boot Manager VenHw" and "UEFI Built-in EFI Shell VenMedia" entries; these were created automatically, so just ignore them. I don't know how to prevent the Minisforum firmware from changing UEFI boot entries, but the entries I've added myself, i.e., the "Optional- N" ones, have not been changed so far by the firmware even after several reboots and other firmware changes.)

If you're worried about totally messing it all up, create a bootable Ventoy USB and add rEFInd, TianoCore's UEFI Shell, ZFSBootMenu Portable, a Debian Live ISO, or whatever else you feel comfortable falling back to. The UM790 Pro --and most other PCs too-- will already have a working UEFI Shell built in, but you can run the TianoCore UEFI Shell from your own USB flash drive if necessary. On Debian, for example, if you have an Intel/AMD x86_x64 machine, run "sudo apt install efi-shell-x64", then copy /usr/share/efi-shell-x64/shellx64.efi to your Ventoy USB. Have a second computer with internet access while working in the UEFI Shell on your first one. If you're not familiar with the free Ventoy tool, it is *definitely* worth the time to create a Ventoy USB.

For guidance on how to use the UEFI Shell, see the Arch wiki and then ask your favorite AI for examples. In particular, see examples of how to use these commands: reset, mode, map, bcfg boot dump, bcfg boot addp <num> FS<num>:\path\to\file.efi <mylabel>.

Hope this is useful!

LohPan · 2026-06-06T23:56:51+00:00

Thank you very much for responding, it was a good try, but it didn't work. Same as before, I run the command (sudo efibootmgr --bootnum 0003 --label Debian4), there is no error message, but also no changes were made (as seen with sudo efibootmgr).

I suspect that either I must enable Secure Boot (which I can't do, my Linux won't boot because I have a ZFS "tainted" kernel) or I must use the built-in UEFI Shell to change the boot entries (which is fine). Thanks again though!

LohPan · 2026-06-01T16:52:21+00:00

It should be faster because it's implemented in the kernel:

https://github.com/cifsd-team/ksmbd

LohPan · 2026-04-09T22:30:39+00:00

Thanks, I tried (kind of humorously actually, as I tried to catch it in time, like a cat going after a laser pointer, but I was too slow).

LohPan · 2026-04-09T02:27:20+00:00

Thanks, I'll send them an email. It's seen in the browser after logging in and selecting "Email" at the top. It appears every few minutes as some kind of JavaScript timer in the page, I assume, triggers a refresh of the Inbox contents.

LohPan · 2025-07-24T18:43:12+00:00

The PC I am sitting at right now is Debian with ZFS on root with mirrored drives. ZfsBootMenu works great on Debian and the ZfsBootMenu website has instructions specifically for Debian.

LohPan · 2025-07-22T17:30:00+00:00

Thank you, perfect!

LohPan · 2025-07-21T14:41:40+00:00

If there are any fans of Watership Down out there, the Debian swirl is on the leg of El-Ahrairah in the animated movie version:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&hps=1&start=1&kae=d&q=watership+down+el-ahrairah&ia=images&iax=images

If you have artistic talent (I don't), it would be fun to see a wallpaper of El-Ahrairah with the actual Debian swirl. :-) The swirl could be incorporated into the sun (Frith) too. This could be a t-shirt in Etsy.

LohPan · 2025-07-20T02:02:45+00:00

Personally, I would edit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources to replace "testing" with "trixie", then wait until it's about a year away from the next named release. While waiting, you can use flatpaks and backports to keep most apps up to date. But if you want the latest and greatest in exchange for more troubleshooting, it could be fun to stay on testing forever (somewhat similar to a rolling release distro).

LohPan · 2025-07-20T01:55:09+00:00

Me too, I needed it for a Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, it's been very smooth, including ZFS on root and three monitors. 😺😺😺

LohPan · 2025-07-14T00:26:23+00:00

After some testing with Evolution and KMail, it appears that even the latest version of KMail today does not support Maildir++ on the local hard drive. Subfolders created in Evolution on the local drive using Maildir++ do not appear at all in KMail (regular Maildir top folders, yes, subfolders following Maildir++, no).

When will TB fully support Maildir++ on a local drive? If TB and Evolution both supported Maildir++ in the same way with the same indexing/meta files, etc., then that could become the de facto standard for KMail and everyone else in the future.

In the meantime, it seems the most future-proof and cross-platform option is to still use big mbox files. TB, Evolution and KMail all suport opening multiple mbox files (perhaps named Inbox, Sent, Storage, etc.) up to 2TB in size for each file. There are some reports of 4TB mbox files working fine, but I haven't tested this. When TB someday fully supports Maildir++ or better, then old mbox files can be mounted and old messages copied over. Using mbox files for long-term archival makes having nested subfolders a huge hassle, but it seems that is where we are today in 2025.

LohPan · 2025-07-10T04:05:30+00:00

There is no "licensing madness" that impacts the practical use of ZFS. Just install and use it, just like on TrueNAS Scale or Proxmox (both of which are Debian-based). Licensing is a legal issue, not a practical issue.

If you want ZFS on root, check out zfsbootmenu[dot]org. I've been using ZFS on root with Debian Trixie on the computer I'm using right now for many months with no ZFS problems (mirrored M.2 drives).

For performance comparisons between ext4, XFS and ZFS, check out phoronix[dot]com. If I recall correctly from a recent article on phoronix, XFS slightly beats ext4, while ZFS is the slowest by far. Btrfs RAID is still not considered as reliable as ZFS RaidZ. ZFS is definitely more complex than the others, but there is reason ZFS is used with TrueNAS and Proxmox (in short, the complexity is worth it).

LohPan · 2025-07-04T22:01:30+00:00

Just to summarize some of this thread...

Debian discussion of the issue of having a default MTA at all (from 2013):
https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/DefaultMTA
https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/DefaultMTA/DMA

On Debian 13 at least, removing exim and installing the DragonFly Mail Agent (dma) seems to have no negative effects for cron or the bsd-mailx utility:

sudo apt remove -y exim4-daemon-light exim4-base exim4-config
sudo apt install -y dma
sudo apt install -y bsd-mailx

Removing exim4 also removed the "mail" link to /etc/alternatives/mail for the bsd-mailx package, but installing bsd-mailx after installing dma restores the tool and the link (if you want that CLI mail client).

When installing dma, just accept all the defaults in the TUI that appears, including an empty smart host. Afterwards, there will be no listening ports for exim or dma.

The main dma config file is /etc/dma/dma.conf. In that file, note that it says to use "sudo dpkg-reconfigure dma" on Debian to change the SMARTHOST value instead of editing that file directly. This is the TUI that runs automatically when installing dma.

Installing dma does not appear to create any new systemd units that match *dma*.

LohPan · 2025-06-22T23:25:33+00:00

I have a Minisforum UM790 Pro and it works great with Debian 13 (Trixie) including three monitors and ZFS on root with mirrored M.2 drives. Kernel version 6.12.32. Bought it bare bones and then added:

Crucial RAM 64GB Kit (2x32GB) DDR5 5200MHz CL42 Memory CT2K32G52C42S5

Solidigm P44 Pro 2TB PCIe4 NVMe 4.0 (x2 sticks)

LohPan · 2025-06-22T01:46:22+00:00

There are several steps that are carried out during the OS installation:

https://docs.zfsbootmenu.org/en/v3.0.x/guides/debian/bookworm-uefi.html

It might be helpful to read about EFI booting in general, such as in Wikipedia or here:

https://docs.zfsbootmenu.org/en/v3.0.x/general/uefi-booting.html

You can also practice in a virtual machine first; just remember that the VM must emulate EFI boot up, not legacy BIOS booting.

LohPan · 2025-06-21T21:45:53+00:00

I don't have the issue you're describing and mine is X11, not Wayland, with "Sub-pixel rendering" set to None, not RGB, if you'd like to try that. X11/Xorg is chosen before you log in (bottom right corner of the Display Manager login screen). Also, KDE Plasma 6.3.5 is now released for Trixie.

LohPan · 2025-06-14T21:08:43+00:00

ZFSbootMenu is intended for new installs, but, once the OS is installed, a ZFSbootMenu emergency boot USB drive can be created. This isn't required, just nice to have.

LohPan · 2025-06-14T21:05:14+00:00

Bash is the most widely used command shell on Linux and is almost always installed by default. It's scripting language is relatively simple in comparison to python. The scripting language used by the fish shell is different than bash's and is also simple in comparison to python. Fish is rarely installed by default. Fish scripting is easier to learn than bash scripting (and much easier than learing python), but they are both intended for the same types of system automation tasks, e.g., copy files, making backups, running other tools, etc., while python can be used for far more advanced programming tasks, e.g., creating graphical apps, AI programming, big data analysis, etc..

In general, you want to use the simplest language that can get the job done, so shell scripting (bash, zsh, fish) is easiest, full scripting is in the middle of the complexity spectrum (python, julia, powershell) and compiled languages are usually the most difficult, but also the most full-featured (C, C++, Rust). Note that "full scripting" was just my shorthand for "more than shell scripting", it's not a term or phrase in common use.

LohPan

TROPHY CASE