Debian post installation setup & tips

Prelude

I’ve recently been using Debian a lot (mostly Debian Wheezy (aka testing)), So I’ve decided to adapt my Fedora 15 post installation setup & tips article for Debian. Here are some of the common things I add to a typical “graphical desktop” Debian installation as well as some tips and tricks that you’ll hopefully find useful. Btw, I highly recommend you to use the netinstall Debian distribution - that way you’ll get an up-to-date installation immediately and you won’t have to download huge installation images.

This article will be of use mostly to people using Debian as a desktop OS (with GNOME as their desktop environment) - it doesn’t discuss any server configurations.

Tweak defaults

Configure sudo

sudo gives you a way to execute single commands as the superuser. You can also do this with su -c, but you have to quote the commands there, which I don’t like very much. To enable sudo for some account first run the command:

$ su -c "visudo"

The file /etc/sudoers will open up in a customized vi editor. Append somewhere to the end of the file the following line:

username ALL=(ALL) ALL

You should replace username with your username.

apt-get + apt-cache or aptitude

There are two common ways (and many others less popular or obsolete) to manage packages on a Debian system these days - the simpler apt-get

• apt-cache combo or the more advanced aptitude tool. I tend to prefer using aptitude since it’s a all-in-one solution - you could use it to both query and install packages and has both a CLI and a curses interface.

It doesn’t really matter whether you decided to use apt-get/apt-cache or aptitude, but you shouldn’t mix their usage - pick one and stay with it.

Install additional software

I generally install Debian from the netinstall images and don’t customize very much the default package set since it’s so easy to install everything you need afterwards.

Install REAL text editors

gedit is ok for causal text editing, but professionals like software engineers and system administrators will definitely need something more:

$ sudo aptitude install emacs vim

Personally I use Emacs most of the time and use vim only to edit config files that require root access. If you need an advanced Emacs setup my suggestion is the Emacs Dev Kit.

Install Z Shell

It’s no secret that I love the Z Shell - after all I rave about it quite often. It should come as no surprise that I happen to use it and probably you should start using it as well:

$ sudo aptitude install zsh
$ sudo vim /etc/passwd

Find the line about your account and change there /bin/bash to /usr/bin/zsh. Alternatively you can use the chsh program to achieve the same result:

$ sudo chsh

Afterwards start a new login shell and a simple wizard will fire up asking you some questions to create a default .zshrc file for you. Alternatively you can use the excellent O My Zsh config - I’m very fond of it.

Install guake(a drop down terminal)

I spend a lot of time at the terminal and like to have one at my fingertips always. Since I’m a GNOME user guake is the best option for me:

$ sudo aptitude install guake

Install LibreOffice

LibreOffice is currently the best Linux option for word processing, spreadsheet handling and presentation creation. It’s generally installed by default if you select the “Graphical Desktop” option in the installation wizard, but you can install the most common components at any time with the following command:

$ sudo aptitude install libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress libreoffice-draw libreoffice-writer

LibreOffice uses hunspell to do spellchecking. An English dictionary will be installed by default, but you’ll need to install additional dictionaries manually:

$ sudo aptitude install hunspell-bg

This command will install the Bulgarian hunspell dictionary. You likely don’t need it so install some more helpful dictionary instead.

Install OpenJDK

If you need to run Java programs/applets:

$ sudo aptitude install openjdk-6-jre

If you’re planning to do some Java development:

$ sudo aptitude install openjdk-6-jdk openjdk-6-doc openjdk-6-demo openjdk-6-source

Install Deluge torrent client

The default Transmission torrent client is pretty basic. I recommend you to replace it with the much more feature-rich deluge:

$ sudo aptitude install deluge

Install Inconsolata font

I’m a software engineer and I obviously spend a lot of time reading and writing source code. I’m very picking about the monospace font that I use and currently Inconsolata happens to be my favorite:

$ sudo aptitude install ttf-inconsolata

Install GIMP

A lot of you might need an image editor. GIMP is generally considered the best option so you might want to install it:

$ sudo aptitude install gimp

Install additional patent encumbered/proprietary software

Enable non-free repo

Just add contrib and non-free to the list of your enabled repos. Your first line in /etc/apt/sources.list should look like this:

deb http://ftp.bg.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

Then do a:

$ sudo aptitude update

Install proprietary codecs

No MP3 support in Debian by default? And almost no video codecs? Non-free to the rescue! Type this:

$ sudo aptitude install gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg

Install VLC

With MPlayer’s development in stagnation VLC has established itself as the best video player for Linux recently. Installing it is as easy as typing the following command:

$ sudo aptitude install vlc

Install Adobe Flash Player

Love it or hate it - you probably need it.

$ sudo aptitude install flashplugin-nonfree

You can omit this if you’re planning to use Google Chrome (on a 32bit system), since it comes with Flash Player built-in.

Install Skype

In a perfect world everyone would be using Google Talk… In the real one:

$ sudo aptitude install skype

Install Oracle JDK

OpenJDK is great, but due to licensing problems it’s not quite the same as the Oracle JDK. If you start experiencing strange problems (mostly in Swing programs) you’d probably do well to try the Oracle JDK instead. The magic incantation goes like this:

$ sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-demo sun-java6-source sun-java6-plugin

Debian uses OpenJDK by default, so you’ll have to do some more work to tell it to start using Oracle JDK. The alternatives program allows you to select between multiple installed versions of a program:

These commands will make alternative aware of the java binaries and set high priorities to them which will make them the default Java binaries. You can use “alternatives –config binaryname” to select active binaries manually.

Install Google Chrome

Firefox is dying, Google Chrome is the new king of the browsers. Download it from the official site and install it:

$ sudo dpk -i ~/Downloads/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb

Google Chrome will install a apt repository as well, so you’ll receive updates as soon as they arrive.

Alternatively you can use Chromium - Chrome’s open source sibling:

$ sudo aptitude install chromium-browser

Install DropBox

DropBox is a great file sharing service which allows you to sync files between all of your computers and mobile devices(Android, iPhone, iPad, etc). It has a great Linux client which I use all the time. It’s available in the non-free repo so you can install it like this:

$ sudo aptitude install nautilus-dropbox

Epilogue

Hopefully some of my setup has made your setup more enjoyable and more productive. I’ll update this article along the way if I stumble upon other things that I consider to be generally helpful.