I got an old Windows 7 laptop that was going to be thrown out and decided to put Linux on it (see previous thread here). Most people suggested I go with the latest stable version of Debian, so that's what I installed. I've mostly used Windows, but I do have some experience with Ubuntu.

The installation went smoothly, but I've had a few problems getting it set up to my liking:

  1. I can't figure out how to setup flatpak. Everything seems to be working fine until I enter the last line in the terminal:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

I hit enter and nothing happens. No error message or anything. I restarted the computer but flatpak doesn't work, either through the software center or the flatpak website. I found a few forum posts with the same problem, but no solutions.

  1. I somehow set it up so that my username is not the super user, so I have to type a password in the terminal every time I want to use sudo. Is there a way to fix this without a clean install?

  2. I somehow set up the hard drive partitions so that the OS is on an encrypted partition, so I have to put in a password for the BIOS to boot up. Is there a way to fix this without a clean install?

  3. I'm used to a desktop interface with a toolbar/start menu that I can pin frequently-used programs to, but with Debian it seems like I need to click "Activities" to do anything. Is there a way to set up the interface so it's more like Windows in that regard?

  4. If I need to do a clean install, I'm thinking of switching to Ubuntu, since I'm more familiar with the interface. Is there any reason why I should stick with Debian? I've heard some people trashing Ubuntu but I'm not sure why. Is Debian better for older hardware?

Edit: Thanks for all the knowledgeable replies. I did a fresh install of Debian 12 (64 bit) with KDE and it seems to have resolved all my problems. Although it's a little slow and buggy, I've had to reboot it twice. I'll try a lightweight DE if that continues.

  • 0x4E4F@infosec.pub
    ·
    8 months ago

    1. That is normal in Linux (and any POSIX compatible OS). By default, in Linux, you're not root (admin in Windows... more like trusted installer and elevated admin at the same time, to be more precise)... unless you use Kali, but that's a different story. You're basically set up as a user in the wheel group, which has sudo privilges. Things are set up this way so that even if things go south on your account (a virus maybe), you don't infect the whole system (it needs the root password to execute things that can affect the install system wide). So, unless you want to easilly destroy your OS in one step, you don't make the root account your main account in Linux.

    2. You need to switch desktop enviroments. Try KDE, I think you'll like it.

    3. Ubuntu is a good choice if you're a beginner (which you clearly are). Install Ubuntu, get to know the OS and eventually you'll see what's wrong with it and why most people are talking trash about it 😁.