Switching to Debian

by immontilla

I have switched my machine from Linux Mint to Debian Stretch keeping my beloved Cinnamon as desktop environment. The process itself, was not a big deal. However, I did some additional tasks to suit my taste.

Scenario

First of all, I am going to share my scenario:

  • My laptop will have only one operating system, Debian.

  • My laptop disk will be fully encrypted.

  • I will be the only laptop user.

  • I will never add my laptop user to the sudo group.

With this scenario, I had to make some changes in the Debian default configuration to have a better user experience

Auto-boot to Debian

I don't like to choose my operating system every time I turn on my laptop because there is only one option, so I did this:

  • Log in as root
  • Edit the /etc/default/grub file
  • Set the GRUB_TIMEOUT to 0
(GRUB_TIMEOUT=0)
  • Save the file, and then run:
update-grub
Turn off the annoying system bell sound

I really hate the sound I heard when I press the TAB key. I don't understand why is turned on by default. Well, to turn this s**t off, logged as root I had to:

  • Edit the /etc/inputrc file and uncomment the line
set bell-style none
  • Edit the ~/.bashrc file and append this:
if [ -n "$DISPLAY" ]; then
  xset b off
fi
  • Run
source ~./profile
Enable auto-login

My user can't sudo, and my encryption key is sufficient strong and secure, so I don't want to authenticate every time I turn on my laptop. Well, I manage to auto-login on my laptop by doing this:

  • Log in as root
  • Open the /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/01_debian.conf file, and
  • Append this lines in it, replacing username with yours.
[SeatDefaults]
autologin-user=username
autologin-user-timeout=0
Conclusions

If you don't like something, change it. As simple as it sounds. Is Linux.

References