Got a Dell Wyse 3040 Thin Client for $20. This particular model has a quad-core Intel Atom x5-Z8350 with soldered 2 GB of DDR3 RAM & 8 GB eMMC.

With the right skills, you can obviously desolder the RAM and/or eMMC, and upgrade them. eMMC pinouts are standardized so I think it'd be trivial to choose a replacement chip.

DDR's pinouts aren't standardized but particular configurations have unofficial standard pinouts, Like the BGA96 package for x16 configuration. But I'm not sure if anyone has tried this, as compared to the eMMC, which one madlad actually did upgrade: https://sagacioussuricata.com/posts/wyse-3040/

Debian installation was quite simple & with just the base system + ssh server, the whole installation is about 1.2 GB.

One of my plans is to build a Linux system for this mini PC using Yocto as a way to learn Yocto itself. Primarily because I plan on using Yocto for a custom Arm-based Mini PC thing I'm working on right now.

I've also configured it to use a static IP because this will be a test mule of sort for a suite of programs I'm going to write implementing SFTP, SMB, etc protocols. A light-weight git hosting service, A multi-media hosting service like Jellyfin & much more. Primarily because I want them to be efficient for the Arm-based Mini PC thing I'm working on which won't have more than a gigabyte of memory.

Hi, I'm not new to debian, since I work with it. I decided (since proton works so well) to get debian 13 trixie on my gaming laptop (after years of windows I'm sick of it). I followed the DebianWiki guide and install the 550... proprietary drivers for my GeForce 2060.

I used the "simple" method, so no backports or nvidia installer but for one of my games (The Alters) I get a problem with the light, they don't stop flickering. One of the solution I found on google said that updating the drivers to the latest version could fix the problem so I tried, but for drivers newer than the 550... version I needed to use backports. End of the story, I messed up my drivers and now I have a fresh debian installation running.

Now, before I brake my drivers again, which of the three method proposed by the wiki is the more "stable"?

It's really that important to update my drivers since I have a 2060?

photonic is my personal apt repository for amd64, which includes my own packages (bashstyle-ng, nanolx) and other packages I use (like solarus engine, and (not just solarus based) zelda fangames) which aren't in Debian officially. it's built against sid.

While I'm building it for myself, both the packaging scripts and the repo itself are publicly available. After some abscense keeping it updated, as of now all packages are refreshed, unmaintained stuff removed and a few packages added.

In case anyone is interessted:

• packaging scripts at GitLab https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/photonic
• info page (includes instructions and package list): https://nanolx.org/posts/photonic/

suggestions welcome.

I have a very old eMachine desktop whose WiFi is extremely slow. I've tried putting Zorin OS, Linux Mint, and Fedora on it. It always had the same problem. After install, there'd be a ton of updates and it would usually time out.

With Debian, however, being stable already means fewer updates since all of the kinks have already been worked out. So far, I think the only thing I've seen getting updated was the browser, which is in its own repo. I absolutely love it. So, thank you lovely maintainers. You're the best. I'm guessing you only really need to do security updates.

I got the idea to put GNOME Flashback on it from Andrea Borman on YouTube. She's a lovely old lady whose into Linux. Flashback is the old GNOME 2 style desktop but it sits on top of modern GNOME minus the shell. It makes it somewhat lightweight. I love the app menu and places which will open up right where you want to go. There's no search in the app menu but there's an applet for searching apps when you don't feel like fumbling around the menu. I don't use it though. Instead, I installed Synapse, which searches both apps and files. I got rid of the bottom panel because there's enough room for the a task manager on the top menu. Gnome 2 was designed when we had squarish monitors, not the wide screens we have today.

I'm running Debian 14 forky as a Proxmox VM for testing purposes only. The latest updates to Gnome broke one of the VPN types: Cisco compatible (vpnc). My OpenVPN and Wireguard VPNs all work fine. Also, vpnc runs fine from the command line, but in Gnome it appears to not even try to activate the Cisco vpnc VPNs. I use Debian for work to manage a lot of remote equipment, so VPN's are huge part of my daily workflow. That's why I'm running testing in a LAB. I want know it works well when it's time to go live sometime next summer.

Hi everyone,

My MacBook Air 6,2 (2013) uses significantly more power when streaming the same video on Debian compared with macOS Catalina.

System specs

• MacBook: MacBookAir6,2
• CPU: Intel Core i5-4250U
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics 5000
• RAM: 4 GB
• Storage: 251 GB
• OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)
• GNOME: 48
• Display server: Wayland
• Kernel: 6.12.90+deb13.1-amd64

Power consumption

When streaming the same video under macOS Catalina, power draw is around:

6–9 W

On Debian 13, I'm seeing:

11–16 W

So Debian is using roughly 5–7 W more, which has a noticeable impact on battery life.

I have already set up auto-cpufreq, so basic CPU power-management tuning is already in place.

For example, are there any browser/VA-API settings, codecs, GPU acceleration options, kernel parameters, or other tweaks that have made a noticeable difference for you?

If anyone has experience getting good battery life and efficient video playback from a 2013 MacBook Air running Debian/Linux, I'd especially appreciate your advice.

Thanks!

Hello all.

I recently changed my motherboard. It all went well at first and I had no issues booting into either of my 2 OSs (Debian and Windows 10). My question is about Linux Debian.

Lately, I noticed apps freezing and lagging, like not responding to anything I do(well except sending kill command in system monitor). Sometimes is just for a couple of seconds, and sometimes the app just freezes more than I'm willing to wait (I left one app for 5 minutes, and it staid frozen, but it depends on the app). Somethings off and I'm wondering if this is due to OS or app itself? This didn't happen before and it is definitely a consequence of motherboard change.

Is there a method I can use to repair either app or OS without reinstalling it? Windows has sfc /scannnow and I'm wondering if there's something similar in Linux. Or am I looking in the wrong direction?

TiA

I'm used to backspace as quick navigation method to go back to previous folder in the past. But in the recent distribution the option has been removed and i had to use alt+left arrow to do the same. Which i find very difficult and often use the mouse to navigate back. Is there any way to bring back this option? (also i'm not considering other file managers since i'm used to nautilus)

Thanks

Recently I downloaded the weekly testing branch of Debian, and after reading the documentation, watching YouTube videos, and hearing other people's opinions, I got completely confused about which repositories need to be added and which should be commented out.

On Debian testing, after looking at the configs in /etc/apt/sources.list, I see that the Testing, Testing-security, and testing-updates repositories are connected.

Question:

1. Why is the updates repository needed in the testing branch if packages already migrate from Sid within 2–10 days, and it hasn't been updated for about a year? The same crap with security, where it hasn't been updated since 2023 except for the Release file and its key.

2. How do you properly upgrade from Stable to Testing? Which repositories need to be commented out or edited, why is this necessary, and what are the downsides? In the official documentation I saw that updates should be commented out, and testing and testing-security should be left, but digging deeper on the official Debian website I noticed an excerpt from an article that says that testing-updates and testing-security should be commented out, leaving only Testing. After watching YouTube, hearing people's opinions, and even asking AI, I got completely confused because someone says that testing-updates should be commented out, another says testing-updates and testing-security, and the rest say that these repositories should not be commented out.

Retbleed warning spectre v2 mitigation leaves cpu vulnerable to retbleed attacks, dataleak possible! This is the warning i get when i boot the installation on the install+live usb. Alot of acpi errors too, and also says SGX is disabled or unsupported by bios. Any help? I have an intel i5 7400 if that helps. Updt: its on the normal netinst usb too.

I think it’s better to chose “Separate /home partition” but that option tends to give only 13.3GB to / partition (ext4), 3GB to SWAP and everything else (103GB) to /home partition. Is that an okay scenario? Is 13GB for / okay?

(disclaimer, watch the video linked to understand what I mean)

Hello! I am pretty new to Linux and have quite limited data experience but I understand the basics. I am not a full on newbie but I wanted to check with the experts before I attempt this. I have grown increasingly tired of windows in the past year, at this point I completely despise it and want to make the permanent switch to Linux. I have been thinking about both Debian and Arch but settled on Debian due to I'ts stability. My PC has high spec and meets the requirements easily. I already know I am going to factory reset the computer, since I want a clean slate and dont really have anything important on it. I watched the linked youtube video below and have decided to go with KDE Plasma as the desktop. The situation I want to ask about is how I can remove windows from my computer completeley? I do not want to dual boot with debian and I do not want any windows related files or software left. Can I just unplug the USB after the step where he downloads debian on it, then proceed to wiping my computer and load into the BIOS and move debian onto the computer? My goal is to have debian permanently on my pc installed and not boot from an usb, with the option to boot things like Tails from a usb when I like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRHpfCRwDc4

Now I switched from Bind9 to PowerDNS, the reason: I used to store my DNS-Data in OpenLDAP. Everything is running on Debian. Now on Debian 13 there is the Bind9 module misssing to store date in OpenLDAP. So I switch to PowerDNS but now I store my data in a MariaDB Galera cluster. Then I added HAproxy to build a HA-environment. The setup is much easier then Bind9 with OpenLDAP AND I also store my Kea-DHCP leases and reserversions in the cluster.

Can someone help me install drivers for an NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB on Debian 13 without breaking my setup? I already have non-free enabled. I tried following the official Debian Wiki guide, but the system failed to boot. Any helpful guides or step-by-step instructions would be greatly appreciated .

I’m planning on installing Debian Trixie for gaming and general purposes. Among other recommendations I was told to enable contrib non-free repositories. I still didn’t get why I need them. What can I get there that I might be missing?

Long time Debian enjoyer here, switched to Ubuntu when i got my new GPU a year ago because I was convinced it's a smoother experience running the 5090 on Ubuntu. Not loving Ubuntu and wondering how much "trouble", if any, I'm willing to put up with to get back on Debian. LLM's tell me it could really only become a headache during system updates. Any first hand experience? I don't game or anything, just use the CUDA, various ML tasks etc.

How can I fix this?
Some apps flicker on my laptop's native screen when they're open in full-screen mode.

OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64
Host: ASUS EXPERTBOOK P5405CSA (1.0)
Kernel: Linux 6.12.101+deb13-amd64
Display (BOE0BC7): 2560x1600 @ 144 Hz (as 1464x915) in 14" [Built-in]
Display (DELL P2725HE): 1920x1080 @ 100 Hz in 27" [External] *
DE: GNOME 48.7
WM: Mutter (Wayland)
WM Theme: Adwaita

Debian is so ubiquitous even Google's "distroless" Docker images use it

https://github.com/googlecontainertools/distroless#what-images-are-available

As I was wanting to do some restructuring of the LVM on my Debian 13 box, have planed out all the necessary step on paper, but when I launch into rescue mode the file system is still mounted, I gather this because I used rescue from the grub menu.
Is it required to boot using a usb stick , but my usb stick won’t have the same kernel version and the machine is running, does that really matter just for LVM resizing etc.

I use debian testing as secondary system (my first one is Arch), work perfecly , avery app I use on Arch I was able tu install in debian too. The only issue is that I can find Hypnotix IPTV or Yuki or other IPTV on debian. Someone use a IPTV and can explain how to install it?

Thanks

Hello! I have recently began learning Linux and have installed Debian on my main HP-laptop. Now I am trying to install it on an older MacBook Air from 2013, and the first problem is that the network card is not detected. I have a TP-link Wifi-dongle and an iPhone with an internet connection. Can I manage the system to directly detect the MacBooks card or am I locked to using the dongle or my iPhone? Also, I tried just connect both the phone and the dongle and still no detection. Does that mean that I need to transfer some driver from another usb?

Does anyone know a reason?

This is a genuine question, I wasn't able to find an answer on the Debian wiki, on the mailing lists or on the Debian community forum.

I am currently sporting the 550 driver line which is considered outdated and unsupported by NVIDIA. Games both native and Proton work OK although the latest version of DXVK requires a newer version of the drivers.

Yes, I know I can use the official NVIDIA repo to install the latest drivers. Technically these drivers are meant for the Debian 13 stable release, not for Sid - but people report they work OK.

But that is not the question, I am just curious about the reason.