Debian

First installation on a desktop

Here are some notes in case you install debian for the first time from the [official website]

configure wired ethernet (avoid trouble to configure later)
if you need to encrypt a partition, ensure that you first have EFI partition (~500MB) and /boot (ext4, ~500MB)

Auto security updates

apt-get install unattended-upgrades && dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades

KDE

If you are minimalist install kde-plasma-desktop, if you need more like kwin (to move a window through desktops) install kde-standard.

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Releases

Users can expect 3 years of full support for each release and 2 years of extra LTS support.

Debian 12 ("bookworm") — current "stable" release
Debian 11 ("bullseye") — current "oldstable" release EOL: ~2024-07
Debian 10 ("buster") — current "oldoldstable" release EOL: 2022-09-10
Debian 9 ("stretch") — "oldoldstable" release, under LTS support
Debian 8 ("jessie") — archived release, under extended LTS support
Debian 7 ("wheezy") — obsolete stable release
Debian 6.0 ("squeeze") — obsolete stable release

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debian-12.4-amd64-netinst.iso

Upgrade distro

# First, ensure your system is up-to-date in it's current release.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get full-upgrade

# update list.d

# Clean and update package lists
apt-get clean
apt-get update

# Perform the major release upgrade, removing packages if required
apt-get upgrade
apt-get full-upgrade

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APT list

Bullseye / Bookworm

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-proposed-updates main contrib
# deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-backports main contrib

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ bullseye-security main contrib

Note: you can add non-free if some non open-source packages are required.

Buster

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster main contrib

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates main contrib

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib

ISO arm

buster-minimal-rock64-0.11.2-1187-arm64.img.xz

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Note: default ssh user rock64 and password rock64

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Change Kernel

Steps: 1. Download/install with apt-get a kernel ((will be added in boot/ directory)) 2. Recreate new grub.cfg ((normally apt-get will do this step)) 3. Retrieve number in menuentry of grub for kernel you'd like to boot 4. Use this number to set-up as default boot kernel 5. Reboot and check kernel expected is here. 6. You can remove old kernel.

Example:

root@host1:~# apt-get install pve-firmware pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  firmware-linux-free
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  pve-firmware pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 52.8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 90.1 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ wheezy/pve pve-firmware all 1.0-23 [19.7 MB]
Get:2 http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ wheezy/pve pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve amd64 2.6.32-114 [33.1 MB]
Fetched 52.8 MB in 4s (10.9 MB/s)
(Reading database ... 24530 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing firmware-linux-free ...
Selecting previously unselected package pve-firmware.
(Reading database ... 24497 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking pve-firmware (from .../pve-firmware_1.0-23_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve.
Unpacking pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve (from .../pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve_2.6.32-114_amd64.deb) ...
Setting up pve-firmware (1.0-23) ...
Setting up pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve (2.6.32-114) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-26-pve
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-amd64
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-4-amd64
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-26-pve
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-26-pve
  No volume groups found
done

Note: here we install a kernel 2.6.32, linux don't choose him as default cause the version is older than 3.2 which is already there((You could verify this on this step, just do a reboot, and using uname, you'll see kernel 3.2)). We could do a apt-get remove of current version, but it's really dangerous cause we currently running on it. That's why we keep the current version of kernel, and changing the default kernel boot((see below)).

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg # allow to create config file for grub, based on kernel available in /boot/*

Notice: Normally apt-get doing this step automatically.

root@host1:~# grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { # entry 0
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (recovery mode)' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { # entry 1
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.32-26-pve' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { # entry 2
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.32-26-pve (recovery mode)' --class debian --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { # entry 3

root@host1:~# sed -i 's/set default="0"/set default="2"/g' /boot/grub/grub.cfg

After reboot, we check kernel expected is currently using

root@host1:~# uname -a
Linux host1.frenchwinesociety.org 2.6.32-26-pve #1 SMP Mon Oct 14 08:22:20 CEST 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux

It's present, so we can remove old kernel

apt-get remove linux-image-amd64 linux-image-3.2.0-4-amd64 linux-base

And now we need to upgrade grub.cfg

update-grub

Notice: alias for ''grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg''

List kernels

apt-cache search linux-image

Packaging

Resources:

basics
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
debhelper manual
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-maintainerscripts.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20959644/building-debian-package-for-shell-script
https://askubuntu.com/questions/101962/how-to-run-a-script-only-during-first-install-of-a-package-and-not-during-upgrad
https://docs.software-univention.de/developer-reference/5.0/en/appendix/debian-packaging.html
source code of debian helper rules
Adding a library file to an already existing debian package file .deb

Tutorial:

apt install packaging-tutorial
okular /usr/share/doc/packaging-tutorial/packaging-tutorial.pdf

Requirements:

apt install build-essential devscripts debhelper

Tree structure of files

./debian/
|-- changelog
|-- compat
|-- control
|-- rules
|-- source
|-- *preinst
|-- *postinst
|-- *prerm
|-- *postrm

Notes:

those with * are optional, just good to know it can be specified
control contains the version, package's dependencies, maintainer contact, architecture, description
rules set of rules to build the package
compat the debhelper compatbility version

Rules

Minimal rule (using debhelper)

#!/usr/bin/make -f
#DH_VERBOSE = 1

%:
  dh $@ 

# you can override a rule, e.g.
#override_dh_auto_test:
#	echo "passed... assuming that test are done before building package"

Note: see man debhelper 7

Create changelog

dch --create

Requires: devscripts

Build package

Make a package :

# debuild (old ?)
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b  # or dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc

Info on package

dpkg --info file.deb  # or -I

# extract only control informations
dpkg -e file.deb # see DEBIAN/ directory

# list files
dpkg --contents file.deb

# extract everything
ar x file.deb

# changelog
apt-get changelog package

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Unpack / Repack a package

mkdir tmp
dpkg-deb -R original.deb tmp
# edit DEBIAN/postinst
dpkg-deb -b tmp fixed.deb

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