Difference between revisions of "Installing Debian 12.9.0"

Revision as of 18:05, 14 March 2025

Pre-installation checklist

- List of installed software by you and others who use the PC (skip if new PC)

- Back up locally (not on network drives) stored files (skip if new PC)

- Have access to bios setup/boot menu - very relevant for new PCs (talk to Matt or Rikesh)

- Download debian-12.9.0-amd64-netinst.iso - if this link is broken find another one!

- Mount as boot iso on a USB stick, e.g. you can use RUFUS on windows to do this or dd on linux

Installation screens

I. Boot setup

Interrupt the normal booting procedure for the computer. The means for doing this will be displayed on the screen with the maker of the CPU, e.g. Lenovo. For Lenovo press 'Enter' otherwise it might be F2, Del, etc. Enter the BIOS Setup Utility menu, e.g. by pressing F1 on Lenovo, and arrow to the Startup sub-menu. Enter into the Primary Boot Sequence; 'shift +' the USB drive to the top of the queue. Save and exit (e.g. F10).

If you cannot see the boot or setup menu, you may need to plug your screen into the GPU output rather than the motherboard output (or vice versa).

II. Install menu

The Debian splash screen should show up, select install Graphical install

1. Language

Select language 'English', 'United Kingdom', and 'British English'

It will now do an initial harware/network configuration. (1min)

2. Configure network

The network autoconfiguration will fail - this is fine.

Select 'Configure network manually'

enter IP, enter netmask (255.255.255.0), enter gateway, enter nameservers, enter hostname (this may be filled in for you already !), enter domain name applied_optics, do not set root password just click continue, new user is local_[hostname], username is same, password should be known (ask!),

it will look for disks

Warning this swill wipe windows!

for partitioning select 'Manual', double click your hard drive which should firstly be an nvme drive (e.g. /dev/nvme01), select yes for wiping, do the same for any other hard drives you want to wipe, make sure you DO NOT wipe your USB drive, select the FREE SPACE partition under your first hard drive, create new partition, the 'Automatically partition the free space' option creates sensible partitions but if you requires something more specialist you should already know how to set this up, select 'All files in one partiion', you should end up wth a bootable partition in #1 (~500MB), your root / directory in #2, and swap in #3 (~1.0GB), partition your second/additional hardrives to wherever you want/need to (e.g. or /localstore), this time 'create a new partion', partition size max, change the mount point, enter manually, /localstore, click on done setting up, click on 'Finish partitioning and write changes to disk', select Yes to write changes to disks,

The installation will begin. (2mins)

Configure package manager, select United Kingdom, select the top option for the software repository (e.g. deb.debian.org), leave proxy blank

Software and updates will start installing (1min)

For software popularity context select no, unselect 'Debian desktop environment' and 'GNOME Flashback', select 'KDE Plasma' and 'SSH server'

It will then continue installing (5mins)

Click continue to reboot (you can pull out the USB drive after it has restarted)

Log into the PC as local_[hostname] using the password from earlier

You must turn off Secure boot in the bios or enrole your key https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot#DKMS_and_secure_boot otherwise you will get a 'Failed to start nvidia persistence daemon' error at startup

If PC slow either install nvidia graphics or change Desktop Session in bottom left to Plasma (X1)

sudo apt update; apt upgrade; sudo apt install software-properties-common -y sudo add-apt-repository main contrib non-free non-free-firmware sudo apt update; apt upgrade; sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64 sudo apt install nvidia-kernel-dkms will complain about nouveau, click ok to replace

echo 'options nvidia-drm modeset=1' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-options.conf > /dev/null echo 'options nvidia NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-options.conf > /dev/null sudo reboot

login echo 'applied_optics' | sudo tee -a /etc/defaultdomain > /dev/null echo 'domain applied_optics server 128.243.74.2' | sudo tee -a /etc/yp.conf > /dev/null echo 'ypserver 128.243.74.2' | sudo tee -a /etc/yp.conf > /dev/null sudo sed -i 's/passwd: /passwd: compat nis /g' /etc/nsswitch.conf sudo sed -i 's/group: /group: compat nis /g' /etc/nsswitch.conf sudo sed -i 's/shadow: /shadow: compat /g' /etc/nsswitch.conf sudo sed -i 's/hosts: /hosts: nis /g' /etc/nsswitch.conf sudo sed -i 's/networks: /networks: nis dns /g' /etc/nsswitch.conf sudo sed -i 's/services: /services: nis /g' /etc/nsswitch.conf echo 'automount: nis files' | sudo tee -a /etc/nsswitch.conf > /dev/null echo 'aliases: nis files' | sudo tee -a /etc/nsswitch.conf > /dev/null echo 'order hosts, bind' | sudo tee -a /etc/host.conf > /dev/null echo '+::::::' | sudo tee -a /etc/passwd > /dev/null echo '+:::' | sudo tee -a /etc/group > /dev/null sudo sed -i '/^# Allow members /a\%scan ALL=(root) ALL' /etc/sudoers sudo sed '/local_/d' sudo chmod 777 /home sudo systemctl enable rpcbind nscd ypbind autofs sudo systemctl restart rpcbind nscd ypbind autofs sudo reboot

More bits

aptitude full-upgrade

sudo apt-get install tcsh openssh-client openssh-server tmux

Fail2Ban

DTS require us to have fail2ban installed on all our linux machines - MAKE SURE YOU INSTALL THIS!

sudo apt install fail2ban

sudo systemctl enable fail2ban --now

Firefox Shenanigans (from Matt)

By default the latest version of firefox is installed as a "snap" package rather than a "deb". This is extraordinarily dumb and you do not want it. If you install the latest kubuntu then I strongly advise you follow these instructions (below) from:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04

-This will undo this stupidity. You won't lose your browser history / passwords / etc etc and firefox should continue to work across machines as you expect.

-Also this fix needs to be done once per new machine - the profile fix needs to be done everytime a user logs into the new machine for the first time.

-the snap runs in a container and cannot see your profile, it can import your profile as I mentioned before but then it won't be accessible from another machine and you'll end up with two unconnected ones. Plus it is <really> slow and disconnected from the usual helper programmes which is a PITA

Instructions:

(1) remove the snap sudo snap remove firefox

(2) connect to the source of firefox as deb sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa

(3) prioritise the deb over the snap (cut and paste into terminal from kate or something):

echo '

Package: *

Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam

Pin-Priority: 1001

' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla-firefox

(4) prevent auto updates reverting your good work (same as above):

echo 'Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins::

"LP-PPA-mozillateam:${distro_codename}";' | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-firefox

(5) install firefox the right way sudo apt install firefox

Matts method didn't work for me, i followed the instructions here: https://fostips.com/ubuntu-21-10-two-firefox-remove-snap/ this got firefox installed by apt ok

Installing Teams

- E.g. download from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app#allDevicesSection

- 'cd' to Downloads or wherever the .deb as gone, ensure it is executable: sudo dpkg -i teams_XX.deb (where 'XX' is the rest of the .deb filename)

- If you get dependency errors then: sudo apt --fix-broken install and repeat above

Microsoft doesnt support linux at the moment so use teams-for-linux

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings

sudo wget -qO /etc/apt/keyrings/teams-for-linux.asc https://repo.teamsforlinux.de/teams-for-linux.asc

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/teams-for-linux.asc arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] https://repo.teamsforlinux.de/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teams-for-linux-packages.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install teams-for-linux

Installing Matlab

use mathworks account based on Uni email to log in download linux zip for the version you want.

At the system terminal do not use dolphin to do this as it breaks everything, unzip the matlab_R2023b_glnxa64.zip installer archive to the matlab_R2023b_glnxa64 directory by entering: unzip matlab_R2023b_glnxa64.zip -d matlab_R2023b_glnxa64

The installer fails to launch as root, as it doesn't have access to the graphical user interface that you need for installation. so do:

xhost +SI:localuser:root

sudo -H ./install

When prompted by the installer, specify the folder for installation. this should be in /eee/MATLAB/R20XYa (what ever the release is)

xhost -SI:localuser:root This allows the root user to access the running X server, launches the installer, and then removes the root user from accessing the X server.

Printers

The install script and drivers are in /home/share/printers/

run on local machine to install

Finish

The installation of Kubuntu 22.04 and all the useful softwares should be done at this point beyond those which require manual installs such as MATLAB. Ask for help if you find any problems.