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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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117

Your chosen desktop Linux defaults? (self.linux)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by wolf to c/[email protected]

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What are your 'defaults' for your desktop Linux installations, especially when they deviate from your distros defaults? What are your reasons for this deviations?

To give you an example what I am asking for, here is my list with reasons (funnily enough, using these settings on Debian, which are AFAIK the defaults for Fedora):

Btrfs: I use Btrfs for transparent compression which is a game changer for my use cases and using it w/o Raid I had never trouble with corrupt data on power failures, compared to ext4.
ZRAM: I wrote about it somewhere else, but ZRAM transformed even my totally under-powered HP Stream 11" with 4GB Ram into a usable machine. Nowadays I don't have swap partitions anymore and use ZRAM everywhere and it just works (TM).
ufw: I cannot fathom why firewalls with all ports but ssh closed by default are not the default. Especially on Debian, where unconfigured services are started by default after installation, it does not make sense to me.

My next project is to slim down my Gnome desktop installation, but I guess this is quite common in the Debian community.

Before you ask: Why not Fedora? - I love Fedora, but I need something stable for work, and Fedoras recent kernels brake virtual machines for me.

Edit: Forgot to mention ufw

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

My next project is to slim down my Gnome desktop installation, but I guess this is quite common in the Debian community.

This is pretty easy on Debian.

Uncheck all tasksel entries during initial installation
Reboot
sudo apt install gnome-shell gnome-terminal nautilus
Reboot again.

It'll boot right into a fully functional Gnome desktop and hardly anything else. The only extra software this installs are yelp, gnome-shell-extension-prefs and network-manager-gnome. Uninstall them with sudo apt purge and sudo apt autoremove --purge if you don't need them. sudo apt install cups if you need printing and remove your wifi device from /etc/network/devices to let network-manager-gnome handle wifi if you use it.

Your system will require 2.8GB of disk space.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes Debian, then use Flatpack to get all the latest desktop software and enjoy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yep, that's exactly the purpose of this.

[–] wolf 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the list.

The way I setup my minimal systems is to uncheck everything during tasksel, then switch to another virtual console, chroot to /target and install what I need. Saves one reboot and hassles, when installing via thump drive. (Did this for Xfce in the past.)