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.

  • 0xtero
    6•8 months ago

    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 dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

    Hard to help without logs or error messages. Maybe you could run the command with --verbose flag to see if it prints out something that might help?

    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?

    This is default behavior and probably shouldn’t be changed. It’s a good idea to set up your normal user without root privileges and it’s a good idea to ask for authentication credentials whenever you need to elevate privileges.

    If you really want to remove the password, you can follow the guide here: https://linuxhandbook.com/sudo-without-password/

    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?

    Again, if you want encrypted disk, then this is actually good behavior, but in case you want to decrypt the disk without reinstall - it’s possible, but not entirely simple or newbie friendly procedure, you need to know a bit about disk devices and mounting drives, for reference, see: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/60971/how-to-remove-luks-encryption

    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?

    Debian comes with Gnome Desktop by default. There are many other desktop environments, if you want to test them. See: https://wiki.debian.org/DesktopEnvironment

    You can also tweak and change Gnome with addons and extensions to suit your needs - see https://extensions.gnome.org/

    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?

    The same linux kernel (in various versions) is running underneath all the distributions, so it’s really just a matter of preference. Since you’re new, hop around - try Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!, Fedora, Arch and everything else to see what you prefer.

    Have fun!