setting-up-debian.md

These are some of the tasks that I typically do at some point after installing a new Debian system.

Add myself to sudoers

This is generic Linux stuff.

su -
usermod -aG sudo myusername

Need to log off to apply changes.

Add access to experimental packages

su -
# note: highest priority on top
echo 'deb http://deb.debian.org/debian experimental main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
echo 'deb http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list
# Get stable packages by default
echo 'APT::Default-Release "stable";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99defaultrelease

Also might be interesting to add access to non-free packages if it's not already there.

Add ~/.local/bin to PATH

For some reason, Debian does not add this directory to path by default, but pip installs binaries here by default.

Append the following to ~/.bashrc

# Debian missed this - pip-installed binaries go here
if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

Install a few useful packages

... Package managment

• apt-file can find the package provides a particular (usually executable) file
• apt-listbugs list any serious bug before installing a package. Useful for packages from unstable or testing

... Terminal

bash-completion Autocompletion helper for command arguments whenever available

Then possibly add autocomplete for commonly pinged domains
complete -W 'two.eebe.be google.com' ping

... System monitoring

htop Alternative to top

Configure xfce4-terminal

• Open Edit -> Preferences
• In the first tab "General", under label "Command", enable "Run command as login shell"

This will ensure that all the good stuff under /etc/profile.d (such as bash autocomplete) gets loaded.