I’ll update this post every once and a while to keep track of what I’m doing… Nothing special.
04/24/19: TLP
04/18/19: Sid
04/15/19: FrankenDebian:
The first rule for not breaking Debian is to not create a “FrankenDebian.”
https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
Why?
“The reason things can break is because the software packaged for one Debian release is built to be compatible with the rest of the software for that release. For example, installing packages from buster on a stretch system could also install newer versions of core libraries including libc6 . This results in a system that is not testing or stable but a broken mix of the two.”
No, I didn’t use packages between Testing and Stable. That would be stupid.
But I like to live dangerously, and have made the assumption that packages for LMDE 3 won’t conflict with packages in Testing so today I removed backports and switched Debian Stretch repos over to Buster while leaving the one for Cindy in tact.
I took a quick look, and while Mint does modify a few critical packages, it’s nothing to really worry about… Or it shouldn’t be.
So far, everything works well, BUT it should be noted that Buster is frozen right now, with 150 known bugs that are being worked on, and will be released sometime this year. I’d assume the Mint team will follow suit and release LMDE 4 later this year. but I have no idea.
For those interested in my setup, here’s a basic guide…
- Install LMDE 3 WITH THE CALAMARES INSTALLER
-FAT32 on /boot/efi (Want F2FS, but because Debian doesn’t package f2fs-tools it makes it a bit harder).
-BTRFS on /
-Format /home to whatever for now, with a temporary admin account
-2gb swap partition for resume
-All other drives and partitions get formatted as XFS - Post-install: because Calamares can’t handle F2FS yet-
-DO NOT reboot
-Install f2fs-tools
-Backup whatever admin user was created (VERY important. You can’t access root without it) somewhere else for safe keeping
-Reformat /home as F2FS in Gparted
-TEMP: Edit /etc/fstab. Change the section with UUID=Whatever to /dev/sdX3 (if /home is the third partition). I.E. (for NVME) /dev/nvme0n1p3. You also need to change the section with the fs label from (for instance) xfs to f2fs
-Copy over user to /home partition
-Reboot - CLI
-Before even logging in ctrl-alt-f1 into TTY
-Login as the admin user
-Run: sudo su
-Now: adduser username
-And: usermod -aG sudo username
-Sign out of your temp account and into the new admin
-Again: sudo su
-Remove the temp account: userdel -r tempuser
-Reboot for safe measures - Restore the UUID
-While still root: “blkid /dev/sdX3”
-Take the section that reads “UUID=WHATEVER.” NOT PARTUUID. I repeat, not PARTUUID… From personal experience
-Run: nano /etc/fstab
-Replace /dev/sdX3 with “UUID=WHATEVER”
-Reboot for safe measure - Switching to Buster
-I recommend upgrading everything beforehand, but i guess you don’t have to: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade && sudo reboot
-Now replace “stretch” with “buster”: sed -i ‘s/stretch/buster/g’ /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-packages.list
-Upgrade to Buster (NOTE: I highly recommend leaving the mint configurations in tact when the installers for new packages ask about them): sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade && sudo apt autoremove && sudo reboot - Upgrade Linux
-Install 4.19: sudo apt install linux-image-4.19-amd64
-Headers are important: sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed ‘s/[^-]-[^-]-//’) && sudo update
-Install the Nvidia driver: sudo apt install nvidia-driver nvidia-settings
-Reboot
-Remove the old kernel: sudo apt remove linux-image-4.9-amd64 - Clean this mess up:
-sudo apt autoremove
-sudo apt clean - Configure timeshift for BTRFS:
-Opt for daily updates, but make them twice a day… Not the totally unnecessary 5 times a day. Keep an eye on that - I also made a few other changes… For instance, installing Clang 7 and GCC 8… Actually those were two of my biggest reasons for giving this a shot.
Anyway, have a lovely day!