Things to do after installing Debian 9 “Stretch”

 

 

In this guide, we are going to see a list of few basic things to do after installing Debian Stretch.

One of the first things to do is to update the sources and then grant sudo access to the default user so that we don’t need to switch user as root to perform operations that require root access. Granting sudo access to users on Home PC’s is ok but granting sudo access to users in an office environment is not recommended.

 

Update The Source List

Note: I would like to let you know that in this guide, we are going to install software from the “contrib” and “non-free” repositories too.

Also we are going to add “contrib” & “non-free” repositories that are not 100% FOSS as per the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

• “contrib” – repositories include packages which do comply with the DFSG, but may fail other requirements. For instance, they may depend on packages which are in non-free or requires such for building them.
• “non-free” – repositories include packages which do not comply with the DFSG

If you want to use a installation that is 100% FOSS as per the Debian Free Software Guidelines then just don’t add “contrib” & “non-free” to the source list.

 

Note: security updates for contrib & nonfree repos are “not” handled by the Debian Security Team.

Q: How is security handled for contrib and non-free?

A: The short answer is: it’s not. Contrib and non-free aren’t official parts of the Debian Distribution and are not released, and thus not supported by the security team. Some non-free packages are distributed without source or without a license allowing the distribution of modified versions. In those cases no security fixes can be made at all. If it is possible to fix the problem, and the package maintainer or someone else provides correct updated packages, then the security team will generally process them and release an advisory.

https://www.debian.org/security/faq#contrib

 

Now lets begin. Open terminal & run the following commands,
su
Enter the root password

 

Now open the sources.list file by running the following command
nano /etc/apt/sources.list

You’ll find something like

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch main

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

Before editing the file, you should choose a mirror that is closest to you for the fastest downloads. Check the list of mirrors in this link, https://www.debian.org/mirror/list.

 

Now we have to add “contrib non-free” after main.

Also I’m disabling the source packages by commenting the source package repo. If you want to install the source packages also, then remove the # in front of the source repo.

 

Example of a stretch repo

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free

 

For pure testing repo, just replace “stretch” with “testing” and add “contrib non-free” after main.

Example of a pure testing repo

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free

Now save & close the file.

 

Note: Security updates for “testing” repository are “not” handled by the Debian Security Team.

Q: How is security handled for testing?

A: Security for testing benefits from the security efforts of the entire project for unstable. However, there is a minimum two-day migration delay, and sometimes security fixes can be held up by transitions. The Security Team helps to move along those transitions holding back important security uploads, but this is not always possible and delays may occur. Especially in the months after a new stable release, when many new versions are uploaded to unstable, security fixes for testing may lag behind. If you want to have a secure (and stable) server you are strongly encouraged to stay with stable.

https://www.debian.org/security/faq#testing

 

In addition to that, if you want to use “testing” repo., then please check the best practises for testing users listed in the Debian Wiki.

 

Now lets update to fetch the list of packages from the newly added contrib & non-free repositories.
apt-get update

 

Grant Sudo Access (Optional)

If you don’t want to give sudo access to the users then you should skip these steps.
apt-get install sudo
usermod -a -G sudo <username>

Replace <username> with your username to which you want to grant sudo access.

Now logout & login to get sudo access to those users.

 

 

Package Manager

Now we are going to install the following packages,

• synaptic package manager – graphical package management tool which enables you to install, upgrade and remove software packages in a user friendly way.
• apt-xapian-index – maintenance and search tools for a Xapian index of Debian packages
• gdebi – simple tool to install deb packages
• gksu – graphical frontend for su

sudo apt-get install synaptic apt-xapian-index gdebi gksu

 

 

Firmware Package

sudo apt-get install firmware-linux

 

 

WiFi

To install WiFi drivers, you’ll have to check the Debian wiki and install the appropriate driver.

• https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi

 

 

Display Drivers

To install display drivers, you’ll have to check the Debian wiki and install the appropriate driver.

• https://wiki.debian.org/GraphicsCard
• https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo
• https://wiki.debian.org/ATIProprietary
• https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers

After installing the display drivers, make sure to reboot the system and check that the display driver is working properly before proceeding to the next step.

 

 

Extra Fonts

If you want to install Microsoft fonts, then run the following command,

sudo apt-get install ttf-freefont ttf-mscorefonts-installer

 

In this guide, we are going to install noto fonts and use it as the default font.

Note: If you are using KDE desktop environment then skip this step (i.e. don’t install noto fonts because the default font that is bundled with KDE is good enough).

To install noto fonts, run the following command,

sudo apt-get install fonts-noto

 

It may take some time to install the fonts and regenerate the fonts cache. After the installation is complete, we have to change the font settings. I’m going to show the process for Xfce desktop environment and you can find similar settings for other desktop environments too.

Go to Settings -> Appearance

• Change Default Font to Noto Sans
• Tick the checkbox to Enable anti-aliasing
• Set Sub-pixel order to RGB
• Set Hinting to Slight

 

Logout & login back to see the new font rendering.

 

To improve the font rendering across both Qt & GTK+ applications, we need to install Qt4 Settings tool and change the font settings.

sudo apt-get install qt4-qtconfig

 

After that, open Qt4 Settings and change the settings as shown below,

Now save the settings & close it.

Note: The style setting should be Regular but in my installation, it automatically changes back to Bold Italic after I close the Qt4 configuration settings & open it again.

 

 

Applications

This is what I use in my system. You might want to change these as per your preference.

• file-roller : Archive manager
• evince : PDF reader
• doidon : Clipboard manager
• qalculate : Calculator
• clementine : Audio player
• vlc : Video player
• gimp : Image editor
• shotwell : To import pictures from digital camera
• gparted : Partition Manager
• gnome-disk-utility : Disk Utility
• libreoffice-writer : Document editor
• libreoffice-calc : Spreadsheet editor
• libreoffice-impress : Presentation editor
• bleachbit : System cleaner [Don’t install if you don’t know what this does]

sudo apt-get install file-roller evince doidon qalculate clementine vlc gimp shotwell gparted gnome-disk-utility libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress


 

 

Firewall

Ufw stands for Uncomplicated Firewall, and is program for managing a netfilter firewall. It provides a command line interface and aims to be uncomplicated and easy to use.

sudo apt-get install ufw

 

Add the default deny rule and we are good to go with a basic firewall.
sudo ufw default deny

 

The following single command is enough to enable the firewall and add it to startup.
sudo ufw enable

 

You can check the status by running the following commands
sudo ufw status
sudo ufw status verbose

 

If you want a gui to manage it then you may install gufw.
sudo apt-get install gufw

 

 

Multimedia codecs

We are going to install only ffmpeg and some extra packages for libavcodec.
sudo apt-get install libavcodec-extra ffmpeg

 

 

Volume Control: (Optional, Only for Xfce users)

You may skip this step if you want to stick with the the default Xfce mixer.
sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

 

Go to “applications -> settings -> settings editor“, select “xfce4-panel” on the left hand side list and then scroll & search for “xfce4-mixer”. Edit it and replace “xfce4-mixer” with “pavucontrol” (refer screenshots).

 

 

 

Now right click on the audio icon in the panel, select “Run Audio Mixer” and then choose the pulse audio settings that you want to use (refer screenshot).

 

 

GUI to manage network connections

(Optional / Only for Netinstall)

network-manager-gnome – This network manager supports VPN and mobile broadband in addition to wired & wireless wifi network connections.

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

 

You can refer the Debian wiki, https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse, for information on setting up wifi.

 

Now we have to remove the list of network references in the network interfaces file. But we are going to disable it by commenting the lines rather than removing it. To do that, open the interfaces file and comment Comment every line except the 2 lines listed after the line that says “# The loopback network interface”.
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

 

This is how my /etc/network/interfaces file look like after commenting the primary network interface (to disable it) except the loopback interface.

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
# allow-hotplug eth0
# iface eth0 inet dhcp

 

Now reboot the system.

 

 

Extra Multimedia codecs (Optional using deb-multimedia.org repo)

If you want to install w32codecs and libdvdcss2 (required for the decryption of CSS protected-DVD), then you need to add 3rd party repository to do that. It involves apt pinning using preferences file and you can find it in this article, Apt Pinning Debian Multimedia Using Preferences.