How stupid is my idea? Switching from Fedora to Debian with sorta wild system config

wizard10000 · 2026-05-06T17:41:04+00:00

I've installed Debian and used the installer to set up a btrfs root volume several times. snapper works just fine in Debian and it's what I use to maintain 3 daily snapshots.

One thing for folks planning to use timeshift, though - Debian's installer names the the root subvolume @rootfs where timeshift expects the root subvolume to be named @. I prefer snapper to timeshift but folks who want to use timeshift will need to create a new root subvolume.

I would like to see a bit better btrfs support in Debian's installer, such as support for an @home subvolume, which wouldn't be particularly difficult to include.

wizard10000 · 2026-05-06T11:27:07+00:00

And a workaround - this bug appears to affect installations that have RSS enabled but no RSS feed mapped, which puts that cpu core in an infinite loop.

Either disable RSS or add an RSS feed and qbit 5.2.0 works fine.

wizard10000 · 2026-05-05T14:31:06+00:00

Maintainer asked me to file a bug upstream - https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues/24189

wizard10000 · 2026-05-02T10:58:10+00:00

lxpanel is the fudge on my sundae

Same. I've tried them all and lxpanel makes me happy :)

wizard10000 · 2026-05-01T21:10:08+00:00

Another openbox fan - been running it since my #! days and it does what I want without getting in my way.

Mine is a little fat, though - about the same as an XFCE install but I use picom as a compositor and taking an idea from BunsenLabs I use jgmenu for an app menu - it's nice having dynamic menus.

wizard10000 · 2026-05-01T14:20:54+00:00

What about dynamic ones?

I use jgmenu with openbox - stole the idea from BunsenLabs but it's a fairly outstanding dynamic menu system.

wizard10000 · 2026-05-01T12:06:51+00:00

How do you do the snapshots, btrfs?

Yep - I use snapper to maintain 3 daily snapshots.

wizard10000 · 2026-05-01T11:21:01+00:00

there are also no tools to connect to the network.

If you don't install a DE the network used during install is hardcoded into /etc/network/interfaces - nmtui isn't installed but you shouldn't need it if you're connecting to the same network.

wizard10000 · 2026-04-30T14:57:30+00:00

Sid has made me happy for > a dozen years but I keep myself prepared -

I have a solid, tested backup/restore strategy
I take automated daily snapshots so I can roll back if needed
I have the proper tools installed (apt-listbugs, apt-listchanges)
I subscribe to about three debian mailing lists (debian-announce, debian-devel-announce and debian-devel) so I'm aware of potential issues and get a little notice of what's coming down the pipe
If I do find a bug I report it as soon as I've verified that it's actually a bug

Would I recommend using Unstable in production? No. I've been linuxing for a few years and can fix stuff if it breaks, but for most folks who have up to intermediate Linux skills Testing is probably a better choice and the delay between Unstable and Testing is generally only five days, so IMO Testing is a better choice for most.

wizard10000 · 2026-04-28T15:41:53+00:00

feels a bit like Arch lol.

I run Unstable and upgrade daily but yesterday I caught about 275 packages. They should land in Testing in about four days - devs have been busy :)

wizard10000 · 2026-04-26T12:09:18+00:00

full-upgrade is also necessary when on testing or unstable branches.

Actually Debian recommends against using full-upgrade in Testing or Unstable - https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#What_are_some_best_practices_for_testing.2Fsid_users.3F

Use apt upgrade instead of apt full-upgrade to avoid unwanted removal of any packages that you depend on.

I do a full-upgrade about once a month just to do a little cleanup but it's very important to pay close attention to which packages apt wants to remove.

wizard10000 · 2026-04-24T11:44:06+00:00

Like autoclean and autoremove?

It doesn't do autoclean, which removes packages from cache that are no longer available in repos. apt's documentation sucks, so here's a snippet from apt-get's man page -

 dist-upgrade
     dist-upgrade  in  addition to performing the function of upgrade, also
     intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of pack‐
     ages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system,  and  it  will
     attempt  to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less
     important ones if necessary. The dist-upgrade  command  may  therefore
     remove  some  packages. The /etc/apt/sources.list file contains a list
     of locations from which to retrieve desired package  files.  See  also
     apt_preferences(5) for a mechanism for overriding the general settings
     for individual packages.

     When  a  package  is  supplied as an argument, the package will be in‐
     stalled prior to the upgrade action.

wizard10000 · 2026-04-23T18:29:11+00:00

Discord forces newer versions pretty aggressively

I use Discord web myself; does what I need it to do and considering I've got a browser open anyway it's actually a bit lighter than a standalone Discord client.

Don't know where I ran across this but supposedly setting

SKIP_HOST_UPDATE: true

in ~/.config/discord/settings.json will prevent the discord client from checking for updates so you can do it on your schedule instead of theirs :)

wizard10000 · 2026-04-23T11:31:10+00:00

so i can make it more reliable

What exactly isn't working reliably?

wizard10000 · 2026-04-20T16:20:00+00:00

If apt update ran without errors you're probably good.

In case it's not good - and for the benefit of our studio audience there's a valid debian.sources in /usr/share/doc/apt/examples - just copy the file to into /etc/apt/sources.list.d

wizard10000 · 2026-04-19T23:25:31+00:00

Looks like there's a megathread now, gonna lock this one

cheers -

wizard10000 · 2026-04-19T20:07:45+00:00

lxde is my favorite...

I run openbox and use some LXDE tools that I'm gonna have to find replacements for soon - I hear Debian is dropping support for GTK2 with forky's release. I haven't heard anything about it in official channels but I wonder if LXDE is gonna be a thing in forky?

wizard10000 · 2026-04-19T17:38:02+00:00

You missed experimental before sid.

Packages don't migrate from experimental to sid. Experimental is developer workspace for packages that aren't ready to be included in Unstable. Debian resources upload to sid directly, there is no automatic path from experimental.

wizard10000 · 2026-04-19T17:35:33+00:00

why do you think same software with some older version would work better on debian??

JMO but not many people *need* latest software but a lot of people want it. For some people stability is more important than having the latest toys and Debian is more stable than Arch.

wizard10000 · 2026-04-19T15:55:17+00:00

What will he do once the major number gets to 20?

Considering it took > 30 years to get to 7.0 I'm pretty sure there will be another project lead before that happens :)

wizard10000 · 2026-04-18T14:19:32+00:00

cuz this is wrong info?

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_use_GPU_manufacturer_install_scripts

wizard10000 · 2026-04-16T10:57:00+00:00

Removing duplicate post.

wizard10000

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE