How to Easily Install Debian Linux

Installing Debian could be easy or complicated depending upon the ISO you choose.

If you go with the default ISO provided by the Debian website, you’ll have a hard time installing Debian. You’ll be stuck at a screen that asks for network drivers to be installed from external removable media.

Installing Debian from default ISO is problematic for new users

You may, of course, troubleshoot that, but it makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Don’t worry. Let me show the steps for installing Debian comfortably and easily.

The easy way of installing Debian as a desktop

Before you see the steps, please have a look at things you need.

• A USB key (pen drive) with at least 4 GB in size.
• A system with internet connection (could be the same system where it will be installed).
• A system where you’ll be installing Debian. It will wipe out everything on this system so please copy your important data on some other external disk.

What kind of system specification you should have for Debian? It depends on the desktop environment you are going to use. For example, GNOME desktop environment could work on 4 GB RAM but it will work a lot better on an 8 GB RAM. If you have 4 GB or less, try using KDE, Cinnamon or Xfce desktops.

Debian also has both 32-bit and 64-bit architecture support. You’ll have to get the Debian ISO according to your processor architecture.

Your system should have at least 25 GB of disk space to function. The more, the merrier.

Warning!

This method removes all the other operating systems along with the data present on the disk.

You may save your personal files, documents, pictures etc on an external USB disk or cloud storage if you want to use it later.

In this tutorial, I am going to show the steps for installing Debian 11 Bullseye with GNOME desktop environment. The steps should be the same even if you choose some other desktop environment.

This tutorial is tested on a UEFI system with GPT partitioning. If you have MBR instead of GPT or legacy BIOS instead of UEFI, the live USB creation step will be different.

Step 1: Getting the correct Debian ISO

Half of the battle in installing Debian is choosing the correct ISO. Surprisingly, it is really difficult to navigate through its website and find that ISO which is the easiest for a new Debian user.

If you click the Download button on the homepage of Debian website, it downloads a minimal net install file which will be super complicate for a regular user. Please DO NOT use this.

Instead, you should go for the live ISO. But here is a catch, there are separate live versions with non-free software (includes drivers for your networking hardware).

You should download this non-free live ISO. Another problem here is that you won’t get it mentioned prominently on the website and there are various URLs for torrents or direct downloads for various architecture.

Let me link them here.

Main repo for 32 and 64 bit

Debian 11 Direct

Debian 11 Torrent

You’ll see several files with the of desktop environment mentioned in the filename. Choose the one with desktop environment of your choice. For direct downloads, click on the links that end with .iso.

Downloading the Debian Live Non-free ISO

Once you have the appropriate ISO downloaded, the rest is standard procedure that you may have experienced with other Linux distributions.

Step 2: Creating live USB of Debian

Plug in the USB into your system. It will be wise to format it just for the sake of it. It will be formatted anyway.

You can use any live USB creation tool of your choice. If you are using Windows, go with Rufus. I am going to use Etcher here because it is available for both Windows and Linux.

Download Etcher from its website.

Download Etcher

I have a dedicated tutorial on using Etcher in Linux and thus I am not going to go in detail here. Just run the downloaded executable file, browse to the Debian ISO, make sure that correct USB is selected and then hit the Flash button.

Creating Live Debian USB with Etcher

It may take a couple of minutes to create the live USB. Once that is ready, it is time to boot from it.

Step 3: Boot from the live USB

Restart the system where you want to install Debian. When it is showing the manufacturer’s logo, press F2/F10 or F12 key to access the boot settings. You may also access the UEFI firmware settings from Windows.

Some systems do not allow booting from live USB if secure boot is enabled. If that is the case, please disable secure boot from the BIOS settings.

The screen may look different for different manufacturers.

Once you make the change, press F10 to save and exit. Your system will boot once again.

Again, press F2/F10 or F12 to access the boot settings when it shows the manufacturer’s logo. You should see the option to boot from the USB. Select it.

It takes a little bit of time and then you should see a screen like this. Go with the first option here.

Debian live boot screen

Step 4: Start Debian installation

When you enter the live Debian session, it may show some welcome screen with option to choose your keyboard and language if you are using GNOME desktop. Just hit next when you see those screens.

Debian live welcome screen

Once you are past the welcome screen, press the Windows/Super key to bring the activity area. You should see the Debian install button here.

Start Debian Installation

It opens the friendly Calamares graphical installer. Things are pretty straightforward from here.

Debian 11 Calamares graphical installer

It asks you to select your geographical location and time zone.

Select your location and time zone

On the next screen, you’ll be asked to select the keyboard. Please pay attention here. Your keyboard is automatically selected based on your location. For example, I had used India as my location and it automatically set the default Indian keyboard with Hindi language. I had to change it to English India.

Choosing keyboard layout

The next screen is about the disk partition and where you would like to install Debian. In this case, you are going to install Debian as the only operating system on your computer.

The easiest option would to go with ‘Erase disk’ option. Debian will put everything under root except the mandatory ESP partition and Swap space. In fact, it shows what your disk would like after your chosen installation method.

Disk partitioning

If you want to take matter in your hands, you may also opt for manual partitioning and choose how much you want to allot to root, home, boot or swap. Only do that when you know what you are doing.

On the next screen, you have to provide the username and password. It does not set root password and keeps it empty.

Set Username and password

This also means that you can use sudo with the newly created user. In the ‘complicated Debian install’, you could also set root password but then you’ll have to add the normal user to sudoer list manually. See, this installation method is easier for beginners, right?

Before it goes on with the actual installation, it presents you with a summary of the choices you have made. If things look good, hit the install button.

Summary of your installation choices

Now it is just a matter of waiting for the installation to finish.

Installing Debian

It takes a few minutes to complete the installation. When the installation finishes, it asks for a restart.

Finished Debian installation

Restart your system and if everything goes well, you should see the grub screen with Debian.

Debian boot screen

Troubleshooting tip (if your system does not boot into Debian)

In my case, my Dell system did not recognize any operating system to boot. This was weird because I had see Debian creating an ESP partition.

If it is the same case with you, go to BIOS settings. Check the boot sequence. If you do not see anything, click on the Add boot option.

Add new boot option

It should give you an option to add an EFI file.

Browse to EFi file

Since Debian created ESP partition during installation, there is an EFI directory created with necessary files.

Select EFI directory

It should show a Debian folder along with some other folders. Select Debian folder.

Select Debian

In this Debian folder, you’ll find files like grubx64.efi, shimx64.efi. Select shimx64.efi.

Select shim.efi

You may give this file an appropriate name. The final screen may look like this.

Adding the new boot option with efi file

Now, you should have this boot option. Since I named it Debian, it shows two Debian boot options (one of them coming from the efi file I guess). Press F10 to save and exit the BIOS settings.

New boot option added

When your system boots now, you should see the grub screen with Debian boot option. You can start enjoying Debian now.

Were you able to install Debian?

I hope I made things simpler here. It is not that you cannot install Debian from the default net installer ISO. It just takes (a lot) more effort.

Was this tutorial helpful for you in installing Debian? Are you still facing issues? Please let me know in the comment section and I’ll try to help you out.

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Icons Look too Small? Enable Fractional Scaling to Enjoy Your HiDPI 4K Screen in Ubuntu Linux

A few months ago, I bought a Dell XPS laptop with a 4K UHD screen. The screen resolution is 3840×2400 resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio.

When I was installing Ubuntu on it, everything looked so small. The desktop icons, applications, menus, items in the top panel, everything.

It’s because the screen has too many pixels but the desktop icons and rest of the elements remain the same in size (as on a regular screen of 1920×1080). Hence, they look too small on the HiDPI screen.

Icons and other elements look too small on a HiDPI screen in Ubuntu

This is not pretty and makes it very difficult to use your Linux system. Thankfully, there is a solution for GNOME desktop users.

If you too have a 2K or 4K screen where the desktop icons and other elements look too small, here’s what you need to do.

Scale-up display if the screen looks too small

If you have a 4K screen, you can scale the display to 200%. This means that you are making every element twice its size.

Press the Windows key and search for Settings:

Go to Settings

In Settings, go to Display settings.

Access the Display Settings and look for Scaling

Here, select 200% as the scale factor and click on Apply button.

Scaling the display in Ubuntu

It will change the display settings and ask you to confirm whether you want to keep the changed settings or revert to the original. If things look good to you, select “Keep Changes.”

Your display settings will be changed and remain the same even after reboots until you change it again.

Enable fractional scaling (suitable for 2K screens)

200% scaling is good for 4K screens however if you have a 2K screen, the 200% scaling will make the icons look too big for the screen.

Now you are in the soup. You have the screen looking too small or too big. What about a mid-point?

Thankfully, GNOME has a fractional scaling feature that allows you to set the scaling to 125%, 150%, and 175%.

Using fractional scaling on Ubuntu 20.04 and newer versions

Ubuntu 20.04 and the new versions have newer versions of GNOME desktop environment and it allows you to enable or disable fractional scaling from Display settings itself.

Just go to the Display settings and look for the Fractional Scaling switch. Toggle it to enable or disable it.

When you enable the fractional scaling, you’ll see new scaling factors between 100% to 200%. You can choose the one which is suitable for your screen.

Enable fractional scaling

Using fractional scaling on Ubuntu 18.04

You’ll have to make some additional efforts to make it work on the older Ubuntu 18.04 LTS version.

First, switch to Wayland from Xorg.

Second, enable fractional scaling as an experimental feature using this command:

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

Third, restart your system and then go to the Display settings and you should see the fractional scaling toggle button now.

Disabling fractional scaling on Ubuntu 18.04

If you are experiencing issues with fractional scaling, like increased power consumption and mouse lagging, you may want to disable it. Wayland could also be troublesome for some applications.

First, toggle the fractional scaling switch in the display settings. Now use the following command to disable the experimental feature.

gsettings reset org.gnome.mutter experimental-features

Switch back to Xorg from Wayland again.

Multi-monitor setup and fractional scaling

4K screen is good but I prefer a multi-monitor setup for work. The problem here is that I have two Full HD (1080p) monitors. Pairing them with my 4K laptop screen requires little settings change.

What I do here is to keep the 4K screen at 200% scaling at 3840×2400 resolution. At the same time, I keep the full-HD monitors at 100% scaling with 1920×1080 resolution.

• 

  HiDPI screen is set at 200%

• 

  Full HD screens are set at 100%

• 

  Full HD screens are set at 100%

To ensure a smooth experience, you should take care of the following:

• Use Wayland display server: It is a lot better at handling multi-screens and HiDPI screens than the legacy Xorg.
• Even if you use only 100% and 200% scaling, enabling fractional scaling is a must, otherwise, it doesn’t work properly. I know it sounds weird but that’s what I have experienced.

Did it help?

HiDPI support in Linux is far from perfect but it is certainly improving. Newer desktop environment versions of GNOME and KDE keep on improving on this front.

Fractional scaling with Wayland works quite well. It is improving with Xorg as well but it struggles especially on a multi-monitor set up.

I hope this quick tip helped you to enable fractional scaling in Ubuntu and enjoy your Linux desktop on a UHD screen.

Please leave your questions and suggestions in the comment section.

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Ulauncher: A Super Useful Application Launcher for Linux

Brief: Ulauncher is a fast application launcher with extension and shortcut support to help you quickly access application and files in Linux.

An application launcher lets you quickly access or open an app without hovering over the application menu icons.

By default, I found the application launcher with Pop!_OS super handy. But, not every Linux distribution offers an application launcher out-of-the-box.

Fortunately, there is a solution with which you can add the application launcher to most of the popular distros out there.

Ulauncher: Open Source Application Launcher

Ulauncher is a quick application launcher built using Python while utilizing GTK+.

It gives a decent amount of customization and control options to tweak. Overall, you can adjust its behavior and experience to suit your taste.

Let me highlight some of the features that you can expect with it.

Ulauncher Features

The options that you get with Ulauncher are super accessible and easy to customize. Some key highlights include:

• Fuzzy search algorithm, which lets you find applications even if you misspell them
• Remembers your last searched application in the same session
• Frequently used apps display (optional)
• Custom color themes
• Preset color themes that include a dark theme
• Shortcut to summon the launcher can be easily customized
• Browse files and directories
• Support for extensions to get extra functionality (emoji, weather, speed test, notes, password manager, etc.)
• Shortcuts for browsing sites like Google, Wikipedia, and Stack Overflow

It provides almost every helpful ability that you may expect in an application launcher, and even better.

How to Use Ulauncher in Linux?

By default, you need to press Ctrl + Space to get the application launcher after you open it from the application menu for the first time.

Start typing in to search for an application. And, if you are looking for a file or directory, start typing with “~” or “/” (ignoring the quotes).

There are default shortcuts like “g XYZ” where XYZ is the search term you want to search for in Google.

Similarly, you can search for something directly taking you to Wikipedia or Stack Overflow, with “wiki” and “so” shortcuts, respectively.

Without any extensions, you can also calculate things on the go and copy the results directly to the keyboard.

This should come in handy for quick calculations without needing to launch the calculator app separately.

You can head to its extensions page and browse for useful extensions along with screenshots that should instruct you how to use it.

To change how it works, enable frequent applications display, and adjust the theme — click on the gear icon on the right side of the launcher.

You can set it to auto-start. But, if it does not work on your Systemd enabled distro, you can refer to its GitHub page to add it to the service manager.

The options are self-explanatory and are easy to customize, as shown in the screenshot below.

Installing Ulauncher in Linux

Ulauncher provides a .deb package for Debian or Ubuntu-based distributions. You can explore how to install Deb files if you’re new to Linux.

In either case, you can also add its PPA and install it via terminal by following the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:agornostal/ulauncher
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ulauncher

You can also find it available in the AUR for Arch and Fedora’s default repositories.

For more information, you can head to its official website or the GitHub page.

Ulauncher

Ulauncher should be an impressive addition to any Linux distro. Especially, if you want the functionality of a quick launcher like Pop!_OS offers, this is a fantastic option to consider.

Have you tried Ulauncher yet? You are welcome to share your thoughts on how this might help you get things done quickly.

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Linux Phones: Here are Your Options

Brief: Linux phones could be the future to replace Android or iOS, but what are some of your options to give it a try?

While Android is based on a Linux kernel, it has been heavily modified. So, that does not make it a full-fledged Linux-based operating system.

Google is trying to get the Android kernel close to the mainline Linux kernel, but that is still a distant dream.

So, in that case, what are some of the options if you are looking for a Linux phone? A smartphone powered by a Linux operating system.

It is not an easy decision to make because the options are super limited. Hence, I try to highlight some of the best Linux phones and a few different options from the mainstream choices.

Top Linux phones you can use today

It is worth noting that the Linux phones mentioned here may not be able to replace your Android or iOS devices. So, make sure that you do some background research before making a purchase decision.

Note: You need to carefully check the availability, expected shipping date, and risks of using a Linux phone. Most of the options are only suitable for enthusiasts or early adopters.

1. PinePhone

PinePhone is one of the most affordable and popular choices to consider as a promising Linux phone.

It is not limited to a single operating system. You can try it with Manjaro with Plasma mobile OS, UBports, Sailfish OS, and others. PinePhone packs in some decent specifications that include a Quad-core processor and 2/3 Gigs of RAM. It does support a bootable microSD card to help you with installation, along with 16/32 GB eMMC storage options.

The display is a basic 1440×720p IPS screen. You also get special privacy protection tweaks like kill switches for Bluetooth, microphones, and cameras.

PinePhone also gives you an option to add custom hardware extensions using the six pogo pins available.

The base edition (2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage) comes loaded with Manjaro by default and costs $149. And, the convergence edition (3 GB RAM / 32 GB storage) costs $199.

PinePhone

2. Fairphone

Compared to others on the list, Fairphone is a commercial success. It is not a Linux smartphone, but it features a customized version of Android, i.e., Fairphone OS, and the option to opt for /e/ OS, one of the open-source Android alternatives. Some community ports are available if you want to use the Linux operating system, but it could be a hit and miss.

The Fairphone offers some decent specs, considering there are two different variants. You will find a 48 MP camera sensor for Fairphone 3+ and a full-HD display. Not to forget, you will also find decent Qualcomm processors powering the device.

They focus on making smartphones that are sustainable and have been built using some amount of recycled plastic. Fairphone is also meant to be easily repairable.

So, it is not just an option away from mainstream smartphones, but you will also be helping with protecting the environment if you opt for it.

Fairphone

3. Librem 5

Librem 5 is a smartphone that focuses heavily on user privacy while featuring an open-source operating system, i.e., PureOS, not based on Android.

The specifications offered are decent, with 3 Gigs of RAM and a quad-core Cortex A53 chipset. But, this is not something geared to compete with mainstream options. Hence, you may not find it as a value for money offering.

It is aimed at enthusiasts who are interested in testing privacy-respecting smartphones in the process.

Similar to others, Librem 5 also focuses on making the phone easily repairable by offering user-replaceable batteries.

For privacy, you will notice kill switches for Bluetooth, Cameras, and microphones. They also promise security updates for years to come.

Librem 5

4. Pro 1X

An interesting smartphone that supports Ubuntu Touch, Lineage OS, and Android as well.

It is not just a Linux smartphone but a mobile phone with a separate QWERTY keypad, which is rare to find these days.

The Pro 1 X features a decent specification, including a Snapdragon 662 processor coupled with 6 GB of RAM. You also get a respectable AMOLED Full HD display with the Pro 1 X.

The camera does not pack in anything crazy, but should be good enough for the most part.

Pro 1X

5. Volla Phone

An attractive offering that runs on Ubuntu Touch by UBports.

It comes with a pre-built VPN and focuses on making the user experience easy. The operating system has been customized so that everything essential should be accessible quickly without organizing anything yourself.

It packs in some impressive specifications that include an Octa-core MediaTek processor along with a 4700 mAh battery. You get a notch design resembling some of the latest smartphones available.

Volla Phone

Wrapping Up

Linux smartphones are not readily available and certainly not yet suitable for the masses.

So, if you are an enthusiast or want to support the development of such phones, you can consider getting one of the devices.

Do you already own one of these smartphones? Please don’t hesitate to share your experiences in the comments below.

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