15 Things To Do After Installing Debian 11

It took the Developers of Debian 2 years of testing to guarantee us the stability that Debian is known for and they came up with Debian 11. it contains 11,294 new packages that avail us access to 59,551 packages in total.

The new Debian has a lot to offer but it requires little tweaks to get the most out of it. So we are going to focus on 15 Things To Do After Installing Debian 11 you could do to get you the best Debian experience ever!

1. Disabling CD Repository

If you have installed Debian 11 from DVD, you will have got following error in your Software center:

Source: Average Linux User

To solve this issue, you have to disable the CD repository. Open Software & Updates from the menu. Select Other Software and you will be given two options. Uncheck both of them and click on close.

Source: Average Linux User

2. Adding Non-Free and Contrib Repositories

The contrib and non-free repositories have many important packages that are not available in the default repositories of Debian. The main reason to add non-free and contrib repositories to our system is they avail us of the followings:

• Proprietary Drivers
• Proprietary Media Codecs
• Proprietary Fonts

Open Software & Updates. You have to allow two Repositories named :

DFSG – compatible Software with Non-Free Dependencies (contrib)

Non – DFSG -compatible Software (non-free)

By default, these two will be unchecked. Check both of them and then close them.

Source: Average Linux User

3. Installing Drivers

For Nvidia hardware:

With the help of the community, open-source drivers have gotten far better than they used to be but if you still prefer proprietary drivers, you can download them by the following procedure:

To detect get compatible Nvidea drivers with our hardware, we have to install Nvidia-detect. Use the following commands:

 sudo apt install nvidia-detect 

Source: Average Linux User

To detect compatible drivers with our hardware, use the following commands:

 sudo nvidia-detect 

Source: Average Linux User

As you can see we are advised to install the Nvidia-driver package from the previous scan. To do so, use the following command:

 sudo apt install nvidia-detect 

Source: Average Linux User

Reboot your device and you will find Nvidia x Server settings by which you can configure as per your liking.

For AMD Hardware

AMD open-source drivers work great out of the box but if you still want to try non-free AMD drivers, you can do it easily by given procedure.

Open your terminal and use the following command to download proprietary AMD drivers to your System:

 sudo apt install firmware-linux firmware-linux-nonfree libdrm-amdgpu1 xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu 

Source: Average Linux User

If you do gaming and want to get more out of your AMD graphics card, adding Vulkan support to your machine will help you a lot.

Use the following commands to get Vulkan support in your Debian machine:

 sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers libvulkan1 vulkan-tools vulkan-validationlayers 

Source: Average Linux User

4. Installing build-essential Packages

Build-essential packages are great when you want to build your software from a source such as Github. Installing these packages just after installation is a good idea. Use given commands to install build-essentials

We are also going to install Linux headers which are required in much-known software such as Virtual box

 sudo apt install build-essential dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r) 

Source: Average Linux User

5. Installing Restricted packages

Due to copyright issues, Debian does not ship with proprietary packages such as Microsoft fonts and many video codecs which are essential for playing different types of multimedia files.

We are required to use the following command to download restricted extras:

 sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer rar unrar libavcodec-extra gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-vaapi 

Source: Average Linux User

6. Decreasing Swapiness

When you install Debian you get a swap space which is used when your RAM has less space available for running your software. It’s a space allocated in your Hard Drive which is much much slower than RAM.

When we decrease swapiness, we are giving instructions to our system that use more RAM as possible.

First, let’s see the current value of swapiness in our system by the following command:

 cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness 

Source: Average Linux User

The default value is 60. now we will decrease this value from 60 to 10.

First, let’s open the configuration file by the given command:

 sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf 

Now we have a line given below at the end of the file:

vm.swappiness=10

Source: Average Linux User

Press CTRL + O to save it and CTRL + X to exit from the configuration file.

Now, restart your system to apply the changes we made in the configuration file.

After rebooting use the given command to check the value of swapiness;

 cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness 

Source: Average Linux User

It has been decreased from 60 to 10.

7. Installing Firewall

We all know that Linux is the Safest Operating System of all but still having an active Firewall to your Debian System is necessary for being protected.

First, let’s install the Firewall by a given command

 sudo apt install ufw 

Source: Average Linux User

To activate Firewall, follow the given command:

 sudo ufw enable 

Source: Average Linux User

To check the status of our firewall, we will have to use the given command:

 sudo ufw status verbose 

Source: Average Linux User

8. Speed up GRUB Boot

If you don’t use the multiboot System, you can skip the initial GRUB screen and save 5 seconds in boot. We are going to make changes in the GRUB configuration file to reduce time.

Open your Terminal and open the GRUB configuration file by the following command:

 sudo nano /etc/default/grub 

Now you can see you have to change the value of GRUB_TIMEOUT = 5 to 0.

Source: Average Linux User

Press CTRL + O to save the changes and CTRL + X to close nano.

To get those changes in work, we are required to update GRUB by the following command:

 sudo update-grub 

Source: Average Linux User

Reboot your Debian machine and that’s it.

9. Enabling GNOME Extensions

GNOME can be highly customized but has a small number of extensions preinstalled. To get access to thousands of extensions, visit the official site for extensions.

Click on the “Click here to install browser extension” and you will be forwarded to the extension store.

Click on Add to Chrome and an extension will be added to your Browser.

10. Enabling System Tray Icons

By default, GNOME won’t show the icons of currently running Apps such as Telegram, Zoom, Dropbox, and many others. You can enable it by downloading the Topicons Plus extension.

Download Topicons Plus from your browser by clicking on the Off button.

You can configure this extension in Extensions App

11. Adding Maximise and Minimise Buttons

For users who are used to having to maximize and minimize buttons like me, you can easily do that through the GNOME tweaks.

Open Tweaks from the Menu

Source: Average Linux User

Select Window Titlebars from the left bar. And you will be will options where you can enable maximize and minimize buttons.

Source: Average Linux User

12. Enable Night Light

If you are someone who works all day long in front of the computer, having Night Light enabled can protect your eyes from harmful blue light coming from the Display.

Open Settings from the menu and select Displays from the left bar. Click on the Night Light and You will be given an option to enable it. Enable it and your Eyes are safe

Source: Average Linux User

13. Enabling Snap and Flatpack Support

By default, you don’t get Snap packs or Fatpacks enabled in Debian. But you can enable both of them easily by the following procedure.

Open the software center from the menu and search for Gnome software. Select the most appropriate result.

Source: Average Linux User

Scroll down a bit and you will get options to enable Flatpack and Snap support. Enable what suits you the most.

Source: Average Linux User

Reboot your system to activate the changes we made.

14. Elevating Administrator Privileges for your user

In Debian, by default, your user will not get any Administrator privileges and you will get the following error:

To get your user Administrator rights, follow the given commands:

 su 

Now, enter the given command to add your user in the Sudoers file:

 sudo usermod -aG sudo geniusgeeks 

Change your username with geniusgeeks

Reboot your System.

15. Extend Battery Life

If you are using Debian on Laptop, you can save your battery by tlp. Tlp is a power management tool that helps us to save battery.

Install tlp by the following command:

 sudo apt install tlp 

Source: Average Linux User

Reboot is required for activating tlp.

To check whether tlp is working or not, use the following commands:

 sudo systemctl status tlp 

Source: Average Linux User

As you can see, it’s in an active state.

Related Posts:

• How to Install Wine on Debian
• How to Configure NTP Server and Client on Debian
• How to Set up Static IP Address on Debian
• How to Change Debian Desktop Environment

Conclusion:

Debian is a rock-solid distro but requires some work after installation and after following 15 things to do after installing Debian, you are ready to enjoy what Debian has to offer.