Debian 11 KDE Setup

Installation

Iso: debian-live-11.6.0-amd64-kde+nonfree.iso
Torrent: Link

On boot choose the Debian installer instead of the live desktop Calamares installer because the Calamares installer fully encrypts the installation whereas the Debian installer leaves /boot unencrypted.

Remove unneeded programs

This removes most of the visibly annoying packages.

sudo apt remove akregator anthy anthy-common apper dragonplayer fcitx* goldendict ibus juk k3b kasumi kmail korganizer  libanthy1 libanthyinput0 mozc* mlterm mlterm-tiny xiterm+thai xterm

Install applications and codecs

This installs many of the applications and codecs I want. Most of it is fairly straightforward, just applications and a translation of the codecs from kubuntu-restricted-extras, except for gnome-keyring and libsecret-1-dev which are installed for Publii.

sudo apt -y install ark chromium clementine curl digikam digikam-data dolphin-nextcloud ffmpeg ffmpegthumbnailer filezilla firefox-esr flatpak gnome-keyring grub-customizer grub-theme-breeze gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-vaapi gwenview kate kcalc kde-config-plymouth kdegraphics-thumbnailers kde-spectacle kdenlive kgpg krename krita lame libavcodec-extra libdvdcss2 libk3b7-extracodecs libreoffice libreoffice-kf5 libsecret-1-dev nextcloud-desktop okular p7zip-rar partitionmanager plasma-browser-integration plasma-discover-backend-flatpak plasma-widgets-addons plymouth plymouth-themes plymouth-theme-breeze qapt-deb-installer sddm-theme-breeze soundkonverter thunderbird torbrowser-launcher transmission-qt ttf-mscorefonts-installer tumbler-plugins-extra unrar vlc

Flatpaks

Flatpak is already installed but flat hub needs to be added as a repo.

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Bitwarden

Install Bitwarden.

flatpak install flathub com.bitwarden.desktop

Standard Notes

Install Standard Notes.

flatpak install flathub org.standardnotes.standardnotes

Other Applications

Publii

Website: https://getpublii.com/

Note: Publii user config in in Documents., not .config.

Rust Desk

Website: https://rustdesk.com/

Syncthing

Website: https://syncthing.net/

# Add the release PGP keys:
sudo curl -o /usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg https://syncthing.net/release-key.gpg

# Add the "stable" channel to your APT sources:
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/syncthing-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list

# Update and install syncthing:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install syncthing

To increase inotify limits.

echo "fs.inotify.max_user_watches=204800" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

To implement the new limits immediately.

echo 204800 | sudo tee /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

Zswap

To enable we need to add a boot time option to the kernel commandline in GRUB's config

Backup the existing config

sudo cp /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.bak

Edit the config

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Append zswap.enabled=1 to the line beginning with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, giving something like

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash zswap.enabled=1"

Save and exit (ctrl-x, y)

Verify the setting:

grep GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEF /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash zswap.enabled=1"

Build the new grub config

sudo update-grub

Reboot the system

Theming

Website: https://wiki.debian.org/plymouth

All the packages for plymouth are already installed but grub needs to be changed.

Edit the file /etc/default/grub and change the resolution. Search for the line #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 and remove the # at the start to uncomment it. Set it to match the resolution of your monitor. 

Add splash to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT like,

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

Then update grub.

sudo update-grub2

Then choose plymouth settings in the KDE control Center.