Installation

Install ISO image

Test your hardware compatibility with a Debian Live system, then do a manual install from the same image to a new SSD
Partition manually, allocate 32GB to swap and the remaining space to /
Data drives must be set to RAID, LVM, CRYPT in this order. For my use cases LUKS on LVM is the best scenario.
If you set data drives, the installer request to encrypt swap space. Do it, then remove the swap encryption after booting into the system.
Set manual static IP address in Network Manager for main NIC and reboot
Update repositories and apps
```
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
```
Copy “.bashrc” from user account to /root, modify prompt color from 0;32 (green) to 0;31 (red)
Check your locale settings
```
locale -a
```
Install the required locales
```
dpkg-reconfigure locales
```
Change dhcp to static in file /etc/network/interfaces, or remove the entry for the interface you want to manage with wicd or network manager, to avoid dhcp-client to assign a dynamic ip during boot. Do not add further interface information, do this in wicd or network manager
```
sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces
iface eth0 inet manual
```

Root and SSH access

Add user to sudoers group and set sudo user permissions (type exactly as indicated)
```
sudo adduser <user> sudo
```
Logout and Login again
Disable root account, vim /etc/passwd, replace the following line with the one below
```
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/usr/sbin/nologin
```
Install SSH Access

Connect existing data volumes

Mount LVM volumes, first check filesystem type

file -sL /dev/sda1 or file -sL /dev/vg_group/lv_volume

Add fstab entry to mount during system boot for unencrypted volumes
```
/dev/vg_group/lv_volume /home ext4 noatime,user_xattr 0 0
```
Add Encrypted partitions/folders with auto-mount

Install Software

Install

sudo apt install vim
sudo apt install smartmontools
sudo apt install iotop
sudo apt install rsync
sudo apt install zip
sudo apt install wget

Usage
```
smartctl --health /dev/sda
```

Autostart Apps

Set up rc.local to autostart scripts at boot time

Remove Applications

LibreOffice

sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice*
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

Firmware

You might first need to add the firmware repositories to get acceptable graphics output. For example, you are installing on a machine with an old graphics card, but a new monitor. In one of my installs the XFCE desktop will boot, but the screen resolution is off, and the fonts are hardly readable. LXQt desktop will not boot into a graphics desktop at all, the machine drops into a terminal during boot.

Add to or create file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/firmware.list, and add the contrib and non-free repositories.

# replace the following repositories (http://mirror.kku.ac.th) with the ones you are using
# use buster for Debian 10 or stretch for Debian 9
deb http://mirror.kku.ac.th/debian/ buster non-free contrib
deb-src http://mirror.kku.ac.th/debian/ buster non-free contrib

Save and exit

Update apt and install the firmware

sudo apt update
sudo apt install firmware-linux firmware-linux-nonfree

Check display hardware and install hardware specific firmware (see below)
```
lspci -vnn | grep VGA
```
You also might need to reset the display settings. Look for a folder within ~/.config, for example xfce4, and rename it from an ssh shell when logged out from the graphical desktop, then login again.

AMD Graphic Cards

Install AMD Drivers

sudo apt install libdrm-amdgpu1 xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu

How to Install the Latest AMD Drivers on Debian 10 Buster
Binary firmware for AMD/ATI graphics chips
AtiHowTo - Debian Wiki

nVidia Graphic Cards

Install nVidia drivers

sudo apt install nvidia-driver nvidia-settings nvidia-xconfig

How to install the latest NVIDIA drivers on Debian 9 Stretch Linux

Realtek

Install Realtek NIC drivers
```
sudo apt-get install firmware-realtek
```

Aquantia

Aquantia AQC107 firmware is not in the repositories
Download the driver from Aquantia

Unpack, then configure the adapter defaults, and build the driver code

tar zxf atlantic.tar.gz
mv Linux ~/Drivers/Aquantia
cd ~/Drivers/Aquantia
vim aq_cfg.h
#define AQ_CFG_IS_LRO_DEF 0U /* change from 1U to 0U */
sudo apt-get install build-essential gawk dkms
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
cd ~/Drivers/Aquantia
sudo ./dkms.sh install

Verify the driver location and that the driver is loaded

/lib/modules/`uname -r`/updates/dkms/atlantic.ko
lspci -v

Uninstall the driver:
```
sudo ./dkms.sh uninstall
```
Aquantia Readme

Exclude package from upgrade

Sometimes it is helpful to exclude a package from upgrading. Virtualbox, for example, requires the GUI on the client to be used after version upgrade to upgrade and install the guest addtions, so sometimes it's better to not upgrade the package while you don't have physical access to the client. You can exclude and include with the following commands:

sudo apt-mark hold virtualbox-6.1
sudo apt-mark unhold virtualbox-6.1

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