debianito-post-install/docs/quickstart.md

Debianito: Quick Start Visual Guide

Scope: Fresh Debian 11 / 12 / 13 installation → fully configured desktop in ~15-20 minutes. Prerequisites: Normal user with sudo access. Do not run the script as root. Related: README Overview · System Info · Repositories · Firmware · GPU · Kernel · Gaming

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Before You Start

git clone https://github.com/stornic56/debianito-post-install
cd debianito-post-install
chmod +x debianito.sh && ./debianito.sh

The script automatically checks for whiptail and lsb-release, installs them if missing, verifies sudo access, checks network connectivity, and synchronizes the system clock (systemd-timesyncd + tzdata).

With no flags the script runs interactively. Three flags change that (full table in the README):

./debianito.sh --yes                     # auto-confirm prompts; menus still display
./debianito.sh --yes --allow-destructive # also unblock branch migration
./debianito.sh --help                    # show usage and exit

--yes auto-confirms prompts, but the menus still display and still need arrow keys and ENTER. By itself it does not reach branch migration (menu 4 [ADVANCED] Upgrade system branch): that operation can leave the system unbootable, so the script reports that --allow-destructive is required. DEBIANITO_PROFILE=1 ./debianito.sh stamps each boot step to stderr with a timestamp, which makes before/after comparisons possible. An unknown option exits with status 2.

Package installs are batched behind a single confirmation: the script lists what it is about to install (the first 15 package names, plus a count of the rest) and asks you to proceed. With --yes these confirmations are accepted automatically.

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Recommended Order

Each step builds on the previous one. Steps 1-6 are the essential path; steps 7-10 are optional.

Step 1: Know Your System

Menu: 1 System Information

Opens a whiptail message box populated by utils.sh detection functions (detect_cpu_ram, detect_gpu, detect_network, detect_storage, detect_displayserver, detect_desktop_environment).

You will see:

• Debian version and codename
• CPU model and RAM size
• GPU vendor(s) and device IDs (e.g., 10de:2684 for NVIDIA)
• Network adapters (Ethernet + WiFi chipset) and their state/IP
• Storage topology (NVMe / SSD / HDD / USB-SD)
• Display server (Wayland / X11 / tty) and desktop environment

Remember the WiFi chipset for the firmware mapping in Step 5, and the GPU line (Intel / AMD / NVIDIA) for the drivers in Step 6.

System Information dialog with hardware summary.

Step 2: Fix Permissions Early (Optional but Recommended)

Menu: 2 User Privileges & Feedback

A sub-menu with four toggles:

Option	What It Does	When to Enable
Sudo group membership	usermod -aG sudo $USER	Fresh install where the first user is not in sudo
Passwordless sudo	Creates /etc/sudoers.d/$USER-nopasswd with NOPASSWD for apt, systemctl, etc.	Lab / personal machine; skip on shared systems
Repair home ownership	chown -R $USER:$USER $HOME	Home files owned by root after a mishandled sudo
Sudo password feedback	Writes Defaults pwfeedback to /etc/sudoers.d/pwfeedback (typing then shows ****)	Enable now to avoid typos during the many installs that follow

User Privileges & Feedback menu. Confirmation dialog for "Sudo Password Feedback" with asterisk preview.

Step 3: System Preferences (Optional)

Menu: 3 System Preferences

1  Date, Time & Timezone
2  Language, Locales & Keyboard
3  Audio & Sound Stack
4  Back to main menu

• Date, Time & Timezone: Runs dpkg-reconfigure tzdata and then _ensure_time_synced (NTP + systemd-timesyncd). Fix timezone before apt update: a wrong clock breaks GPG verification.
• Language, Locales & Keyboard: Runs dpkg-reconfigure locales and keyboard-configuration. Requires re-login to apply LANG.
• Audio & Sound Stack: Checklist with pipewire-audio (or pipewire on Bullseye), alsa-utils, pavucontrol (hidden on TTY), pulsemixer, playerctl. PipeWire on Trixie offers a Backports vs Stable choice and installs Bluetooth Hi-Res codecs (LDAC, aptX, AAC). See System Preferences.

System Preferences menu.

Step 4: Configure Repositories (Required)

Menu: 4 Configure Repositories

1  Enable Contrib & Non-Free Components
2  Migrate traditional sources.list to DEB822 format
3  Setup/Update Backports repositories
4  [ADVANCED] Upgrade system branch (Testing / SID)
5  Back to main menu

1. Choose 1. Enable Contrib & Non-Free: adds contrib, non-free, non-free-firmware (Bookworm/Trixie). Required for firmware, NVIDIA drivers, and Steam (contrib). The script handles both /etc/apt/sources.list (classic) and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources (DEB822) and validates via apt update with automatic rollback.
2. Choose 3. Setup/Update Backports: answers Yes to enable trixie-backports / bookworm-backports in a separate file (debian-backports.sources or .list). Backports gives newer kernels, Mesa, and firmware. See Configure Repositories.

⚠️ Without non-free and contrib, Steps 5 and 8 will fail. Do not skip.

Repositories menu. Backports confirmation dialog.

Step 5: Install Firmware & Wireless Drivers

Menu: 5 Firmware, Wireless & Bluetooth

The script:

• Scans all network hardware (PCI lspci -nn + USB lsusb, filtered for Realtek/Intel/Mediatek/Atheros/Qualcomm) and Bluetooth controllers
• Maps vendors to packages: firmware-iwlwifi, firmware-realtek, firmware-mediatek, firmware-atheros, firmware-intel-misc, plus firmware-linux-nonfree as the base meta-package
• Builds a plan showing detected controllers and planned packages, including Bluetooth handling (KDE → bluedevil, XFCE → blueman, GNOME → built-in, plus pipewire-pulse/wireplumber if PipeWire is active)
• Asks for confirmation before installing; offers Stable vs Backports for the base firmware

Accept the plan it shows: it is based on your actual hardware. Broadcom wireless (if present) is handled via broadcom-sta-dkms with DKMS build checks and update-initramfs + modprobe wl.

⚠️ You need internet for this step. If WiFi does not work after firmware install, reboot first: the driver needs a fresh load.

Firmware plan dialog with hardware + package list.

Step 6: Install Graphics Drivers

Menu: 6 Graphics Drivers & Mesa Stack

Whiptail radiolist with two options:

1  Radeon/Intel Mesa
2  NVIDIA Drivers

Path A: Radeon/Intel Mesa

Shows a plan with detected GPUs (Intel firmware + intel-media-va-driver-non-free or i965-va-driver-shaders for Gen7-, firmware-amd-graphics for AMD, plus Mesa Vulkan/OpenGL/VA-API). Offers legacy AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 migration to amdgpu via GRUB params (radeon.si_support=0 ... amdgpu.si_support=1). Installs Mesa from Backports or Stable (_install_mesa_backports), verifies mesa-vulkan-drivers, and offers vendor-specific telemetry (radeontop, intel-gpu-tools, vainfo).

Path B: NVIDIA Drivers

Shows detected NVIDIA GPUs and a two-stage menu:

1. Manage menu (if a driver is already installed): Install / Change Driver Version vs Remove Driver and Restore Nouveau.
2. Version menu (depends on Debian version):
   • Bookworm: v535 (Recommended) or v470 (Kepler legacy via nvidia-tesla-470-driver)
   • Trixie: v550 (Debian stable, Recommended), v590 or v595 (NVIDIA CUDA Repo with cuda-keyring + nvidia-open + firmware-nvidia-gsp)

The script auto-detects the GPU architecture (kepler / fermi / maxwell / pascal / turing / ampere / ada / blackwell) and enforces compatibility. For example, Blackwell requires v590+ on Trixie, Maxwell/Pascal on Trixie + backports kernel is forced to v550 stable, Fermi is vetoed on Bookworm/Trixie with an explanatory message.

GPU type selector (Radeon/Intel vs NVIDIA).

After installation, reboot before testing. NVIDIA drivers need a fresh kernel load.

Step 7: Kernel Configuration (Optional)

Menu: 7 Kernel

stable     Install linux-image-amd64 (Stable)
backports  Install from backports (Trixie only)
rt         Install linux-image-rt-amd64 (Preempt-RT)
cloud      Install linux-image-cloud-amd64
back       Return to main menu

• Stable: default Debian kernel (6.12 LTS on Trixie).
• Backports: only on Trixie; requires trixie-backports enabled in Step 4. Newer kernel (e.g., 7.x) for Intel Arrow Lake / AMD Zen 5, Battlemage D3cold, etc.
• RT: Preempt-RT low-latency kernel. Warns if GPU_TYPE == nvidia (proprietary drivers may not support RT).
• Cloud: minimal kernel for VMs/containers (linux-image-cloud-amd64).

Each variant installs the matching linux-headers-* package atomically (sudo apt install -y [-t trixie-backports] linux-image-* linux-headers-*). The script warns about DKMS recompilation if NVIDIA is present.

Kernel menu with four variants. See kernel for backports rationale and bootloader details.

Step 8: Gaming Setup (Optional)

Menu: 8 Gaming Setup

A single checklist with all options:

[*] i386      Enable 32-bit (i386) architecture
[*] steam     Steam (requires 32-bit support)
[*] mangohud  Performance overlay (Vulkan/OpenGL)
[ ] gamemode  Game performance optimization
[*] goverlay  MangoHud config GUI
[ ] heroic    Heroic Launcher (Epic/GOG)
[ ] java      Minecraft Java Runtime
[ ] openrgb   OpenRGB (RGB lighting control)
[ ] lutris    Lutris + Wine (requires 32-bit support)
[ ] retroarch RetroArch Emulator Frontend

• If steam, lutris, or i386 is checked, the script runs dpkg --add-architecture i386 + apt update, then installs 32-bit graphics libraries (_install_nvidia_32bit or _install_mesa_32bit).
• steam checks contrib (ensure_contrib_repo) and installs steam-installer.
• heroic fetches the latest .deb from GitHub releases (api.github.com).
• openrgb is Bookworm/Trixie only; handles i2c-dev, udev, i2c group, and setcap.
• java offers Temurin 8 / 17 / 21 / 25 via extrepo adoptium.
• Requires GUI for some installers (skipped on headless).

Gaming checklist with i386 + Steam + MangoHud checked. See gaming and retroarch.

Step 9: ZRAM Compressed Swap (Optional)

Menu: 9 ZRAM

1  View ZRAM status
2  Create / Reconfigure ZRAM
3  Remove ZRAM
4  Back to main menu

• View: Shows /etc/default/zramswap (ALGO, SIZE, PRIORITY) and zramctl output.
• Create / Reconfigure: Choice of lz4 (fastest, gaming) vs zstd (better ratio). Recommended size is 50% of RAM (≤8 GB) or 4096 MB fixed (>8 GB), configurable. Writes to /etc/default/zramswap (ALGO, SIZE, PRIORITY=100) and systemctl restart zramswap || true. Priority 100 ensures ZRAM is used before any disk swap (priority 10).
• Remove: systemctl stop zramswap, swapoff /dev/zram0, modprobe -r zram, apt purge zram-tools, removes /etc/default/zramswap.

Algorithm choice (lz4 vs zstd). zramctl status output in whiptail. See zram.

Step 10: Swap Management (Optional)

Menu: 10 Swap Management

1  Show current swap & swappiness
2  Create / resize swapfile
3  Remove swapfile
4  Change swappiness
5  Back to main menu

• Uses /swapfile with pri=10 (below ZRAM's 100) and tag # debianito-managed-swap in /etc/fstab.
• Btrfs: warns about nodatacow (chattr +C) and hibernation limitations; uses dd instead of fallocate.
• Fstab is written via a temp file and validated with findmnt --verify before replacing /etc/fstab.
• Concurrency is guarded by flock /run/lock/debianito-swap.lock.

Swap Management menu. Swap status. See swap.

Step 11: Install Programs and Software

Menu: 11 Install Programs and Software → 0 Essential Pack

One-click install of htop, inxi, neofetch/fastfetch, vlc, ufw, zip, unrar, p7zip, plus lsb-release fixes.

After this, browse the other categories as needed:

Category	Example Packages
Customization System	Desktop themes, icons, cursors, fonts
Download & Network	aria2, ytdlp, qBittorrent, Deluge
Internet	Firefox, LibreWolf, Chromium, Tor, Thunderbird, RiseUp/Mullvad VPN
Communication	Signal, Telegram, HexChat
Media Players	VLC, MPV
Multimedia & Design	GIMP, Kdenlive, Blender, Audacity, Inkscape
Code Editors & IDEs	Neovim, Helix, Emacs, VSCodium, Geany
Servers & Dev Tools	Nginx, PostgreSQL, Docker, Temurin JDK, Jellyfin
Security & Networking	Wireshark, ClamAV, UFW, fail2ban
Software Center & Flatpak	GNOME Software, KDE Discover, Flatpak
Office & Productivity	LibreOffice, document tools
System Tools	htop/btop, Timeshift, extension-manager, virt-manager
Fetch / System Info	fastfetch, neofetch, hyfetch, screenfetch

Category menu with 0-14 options. Essential Pack confirmation.

Step 12: Boot Rescue

Menu: 12 Boot Rescue + GRUB

• GRUB boot menu settings: 4 presets (hidden 0s / 3s / 5s / custom) writing GRUB_TIMEOUT, GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE, GRUB_RECORDFAIL_TIMEOUT, GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER to /etc/default/grub.d/99_script_override.cfg with update-grub + backup/rollback.
• UEFI Secure Boot repair: reinstalls shim-signed, grub-efi-amd64-signed, linux-image-amd64, runs grub-install + update-grub (UEFI only, checked via /sys/firmware/efi + mokutil).
• Initramfs regeneration: update-initramfs -u -k all || true.

See boot.

Step 13: Desktop & Display

Menu: 13 Desktop & Display

1  Desktop Environment
2  Display Manager
3  Back to main menu

• Desktop Environment: pick one of XFCE (full / minimal / Wayland labwc on Trixie / custom checklist), LXDE (full / core), GNOME (full / core) or KDE Plasma (full / minimal). Each environment installs from its own module in modules/desktops/ (lazy-loaded). XFCE installs polkit rules (85-suspend.rules, 89-backlight.rules) + backlight group; GNOME/KDE preseed the display manager while keeping any already-configured one as default. After the install, the script offers the PipeWire audio stack if none is present.
• Display Manager: LightDM (GTK greeter, user list, autologin), GDM3 (user list, autologin, NVIDIA Wayland override via 61-gdm.rules → /dev/null), SDDM (autologin with session auto-detection plasmawayland → lxqt-wayland → plasma → lxqt), greetd (base / tuigreet / gtkgreet / nwg-hello / wlgreet; manual /etc/greetd/config.toml required).

See Desktop & Display.

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After the Script

1. Reboot if you installed firmware, GPU drivers, or a new kernel.

2. Verify:

   sudo zramctl              # ZRAM active?
   sudo swapon --show        # Swap with correct priorities?
   vainfo                    # VA-API acceleration?
   nvidia-smi                # NVIDIA driver loaded?
   systemctl status bluetooth # Bluetooth active?
   

3. For gaming, the script adds the i386 architecture when you check steam, lutris or i386; verify with dpkg --print-foreign-architectures | grep i386.

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Troubleshooting Quick Answers

Symptom	Fix
WiFi not working after firmware	Reboot. Check lspci -nn | grep Network and verify the package (firmware-iwlwifi etc.) is ii via dpkg -l. Ensure non-free + non-free-firmware were enabled in Step 4.
Black screen after NVIDIA + Wayland (GNOME/GDM3)	At login, select GNOME on Xorg (gear icon) or disable Wayland: sudo nano /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf → WaylandEnable=false. The script only warns about Debian bug #1109409, it does not force X11.
GRUB menu hidden and cannot enter	Hold ESC immediately after power-on. Or boot a live USB, chroot, and run 12 Boot Rescue → GRUB boot menu settings → Show 5 seconds.
Steam fails to start	Verify i386 is enabled: dpkg --print-foreign-architectures. Check contrib is in /etc/apt/sources.list. Re-run 8 Gaming Setup and ensure the checklist had i386 + steam checked.
greetd installed but cannot log in	This is expected: you must create /etc/greetd/config.toml manually. See man greetd and man 5 greetd-sessions.
Bluetooth tray icon missing	Reboot or systemctl restart bluetooth. Ensure bluez, bluedevil (KDE) or blueman (XFCE) is installed. For PipeWire, check systemctl --user status pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber.
PipeWire crackling / no Bluetooth Hi-Res codec	Re-run 3 System Preferences → Audio & Sound → PipeWire Audio Stack. Verify libldacbt-*, libopenaptx0, libfdk-aac2t64 are installed (dpkg -l | grep -E 'ldac|aptx|fdk').