I have been fascinated with computers and technology since the beginning of the 1990s. I am a long time Windows user, since Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, but since the early 2000s I played with Linux (at the time it was Fedora Core, Ubuntu, Libranet, and a few other obscure ones). But it was always for a short period of time, since at that time gaming and serious video/photo editing was more than limited on Linux, so I went quickly back to Windows every time I tried it.

Sporadically, I would try out certain distros (Debian, Ubuntu or Mint), but nothing serious nor for a really long time. Until late August 2019. It all started almost as a joke, it was initiated mostly because of my dissatisfaction with data mining, increasing surveillance and lack of privacy in Windows 10.

So I am trying, once again, a total switch from Windows to Linux. First, I chose Linux Mint, as it is a quite newbie friendly, and it is pretty stable. Later, I moved to Ubuntu MATE, and Debian (both MATE and Cinnamon). Also, I am not a programmer, and do not wish to compile files nor do I want to use hours and days tweaking codes and lines in a terminal or vim. I just want to use my machines for whatever I want to use them for (mostly writing, gaming, browsing, video editing). I felt that Linux Mint fitted perfectly my requirements. However, since the beginning of my latest Linux journey I have tried many different ditributions, and currently I am using Devuan, which is a forked Debian project, but without the infamous systemd. I hope to make this switch permanently this time, and therefore to make things easier for myself and other newcomers, I created this Debian Linux Handbook.

—-
(Feb 2023): Shifted back to Debian. It just works. Yes, it uses systemd, but it works.
(16 Sep 2022): I have switched from Debian Testing to Devuan (Chimaera) on my main machine. I want to see if lack of systemd. will improve performance (especially shutdown time).
(29 Jan 2022): I have switched from Ubuntu MATE to Debian 11 Stable on January 19, 2022 on my main machine, and thus is also most tips in this handbook.
(12 Apr 2020): I got a ThinkPad T450, so I installed Debian Sid on it. A wonderful distro. Use it primarily for browsing, writing and such.
(27 Aug 2019): Installed Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon. Bye bye, Windows 7.

Enjoy!


I use these apps in Linux