Switching from a rolling release like openSUSE Tumbleweed was quite a change, but I’ve really come to like the stable foundation Debian offers.

Some software is a few versions older—which isn’t a big deal—but there are also things that aren’t (or aren’t yet) available in the Debian repositories.

But for that, there’s Flatpak, which I trust more than random third-party repositories.

Right now, my only issue is that my custom-built AMD PC occasionally and very rarely freezes. I’m on the case, though, and I actually suspect it’s a third-party program that doesn’t come from the Debian repo.

On the bright side of committing to Debian for a year, I’ve now got a solid backup strategy in place with Déjà Dup, Timeshift, and Dotdrop. Thanks to that, reinstalling the system is a breeze – especially helpful since I tend to tinker more than a lot!

Since I’ve still got 11 months with Debian ahead of me, one of my current projects is learning how to create .deb packages. The Debian documentation is excellent—but also quite complex!

But my first attempt with rofi 2.0 was a success—so maybe in 11 months, I’ll have my own repo! ;)

All in all: A positive experience in the first month and a happy outlook for the next 11 months with Debian. Beyond the technical aspects, there’s also the good feeling of being on the right side.

#debian #gnome

At least it's relatively limited. But Arch and nixOS also keep tempting me.

However, I believe that I need to get to know one distro really well. So in 2026, I will only use Debian Stable on my two main computers (PC and laptop).

No more distro hopping until 2027.

Of course, anything goes on my hobby Thinkpad. So that you can check up on me, the header of this page counts (Javascript must be enabled).

#debian

For 10 minutes, openSUSE was back on my computer. I was surprised myself that I immediately reinstalled Debian 13.

I had assumed that not having a ‘brand new’ system would bother me too much.

But on the contrary: Debian's simplicity and stability brought me back very quickly. It also turns out that I have quite a lot of up-to-date software after all.

Basically, I only use 10 to 15 apps regularly. For some, it doesn't matter that they lag behind in a few features; for others, there's always Flathub.

I use Librewolf as my browser anyway, and it has its own repo.

I get a more up-to-date kernel or firmware via backports.

So I can highly recommend Debian... Simple, refreshingly old-fashioned and stable.

#debian

My solution to this problem doesn't make any sense at all, but it makes me very happy at the moment: Debian 13 and GNOME.

Right now, I'm looking for stability, and what could be better than Debian? Plus, we've hit the sweet spot with Debian 13 just coming out. So don't ask me in six months if I'm still this happy.

What's so great about Debian? It runs without any problems, whether on my desktop or my Framework 12. All codecs are included, and all my apps are there too (otherwise there's Flathub)...

But why Gnome and no more Tiling Window Manager? I can't say exactly, and I'm not completely done with keyboard shortcuts yet. But you can also configure a lot of stuff in GNOME

More on that later, for sure.

#debian #gnome

Backports Kernel

Debian 12 comes with the kernel 6.1. With this kernel, the display does not want to wake up after sleep mode. Installing the 6.10 kernel from the backports helps here.

Add to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports main non-free-firmware

Update:

sudo apt update

Install Kernel 6.10:

sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports linux-headers-6.10.11+bpo-amd6

And Kernel headers needed later for tuxedo drivers.

sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports linux-headers-6.10.11+bpo-amd6

AMD GPU firmware:

sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports firmware-amd-graphics

Fixing Display Freezing

In /etc/default/grub change

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10"

This will fix freezes of the display when running on battery. Adding splash will add a nicer prompt if you use encryption.

Update grub:

sudo update-grub

and reboot.

Tuxedo Control Center

Tuxedo recommends not to include your packages as a repo, but to install them directly.

Download the latest version of

tuxedo-control-centerVERSIONamd64.deb

and

tuxedo-driversVERSIONall.deb.

Install both packages with

sudo apt install ./tuxedo*.deb

Add Keys to Secure Boot

To ensure that the Tuxedo driver also works under Secure Boot, the signature of the module created with dkms during installation must be stored in the UEFI.

If mokutil is not installed, it will be installed. dkms should already be installed. If I enter the following, it will be installed in case of doubt.

sudo dnf install mokutil dkms

The machine owner key (mok.pub) from dkms can be found in Fedora in the path: /var/lib/dkms

The installation is carried out by:

sudo mokutil --import /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub

The MOK Manager appears after the computer has restarted. In the MOK manager, select Enroll MOK – Continue – Yes. Then restart the computer and the Tuxedo drivers should now also run under Secure Boot.

For more detailed steps, you could look at the sources. I just wrote a summary for my system.

Sources:

• Tuxedocomputers.com: TUXEDO Control Center and drivers under Debian
• Reddit.com: This is how I set up secure boot with Fedora and tuxedo-keyboard driver

#debian #hardware