Debian 12 Troubles

[@firealarmapprentice4517]

I lost my "FILES" app, and some of my settings don't hold. I also lost my "DISK" utility app. This is just in the first 5 days. Currently running NIX and liking it.

[@fossmanmedia]

Ouch. That's a rough start. Hope NIX goes well for you.

[@ruthlessadmin]

I haven't used Debian proper in quite a while on desktops but last time I did, I remember each major version release was initially pretty rough and would take several months for them to roll out patches to clean everything up. I suppose the issue is, they can only do so much with internal testing, which only represents a tiny sliver of real-world operating environments & use cases.

[@fossmanmedia]

Good point. Think I'll try it again after it's had a couple point releases.

[@1234567qwerification]

As it was said about Ms Windows in the old days: don't use it until the second service pack :)

[@ruthlessadmin]

@@1234567qwerification lol...good analogy.

[@mingiasi]

I ended my relationship with gnome when 3 rolled around. I refuse to be dictated.

[@freakinccdevilleiv380]

That guy there getting shot is me giving up, when there was no possible way to get to any Debian repository or 'mirror' the other night.

[@fossmanmedia]

That sucks. I don't have them enabled, but I've heard that adding the 'contrib' and 'non-free' repositories through the 'sources.list' has changed from adding them to every line, to just the 1st. Could be many different reasons of course, that's the first one that came to mind. Hope your having more luck.

[@cbbcbb6803]

So, should I wait un 12.5, or whatever, before installing Debian? Some of us do not like "dark mode". I call it "too dark" mode. I would prefet slightly darkER mode instead of dark mode.

[@fossmanmedia]

Think it would just depend on what you require from the distribution. Personally I found the newest versions of Gnome to be the main cause of most of the problems I had with the install. I'd just suggest using a different desktop environment. Good luck.

[@wernerclaassen4787]

You do know that many of your gripes has to do with the gnome de and with wayland itself! Not with debian....

[@fossmanmedia]

Yeah, I do. I regret not specifying that more. After I re-watched the video, that was the 1st thing that came to mind. I'll post another video soon stating that. Most of my frustrations where with Gnome, not Debian.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

I wonder why people stick with GNOME, when Debian (and its derivatives) offer so many other GUI choices...

[@mathesonstep]

Ok after watching this video I tried a few things. I had zero issues installing qemu/kvm and I had zero issues with windows not working in wayland. I have a feeling the wayland issues might be caused by hardware incompatibility's on your end but I am still very confused as to why you can't install qemu/kvm I was able to install it perfectly on a fresh install and an upgraded install

[@ruirosado6289]

Debian changed the package names, that's what happened.

[@dakka76]

I also had zero issue with QEMU/KVM hell I even have virtmanager. No network issues at all. I don't use gnome so I don't have any of the GUI issues either. The only issue I have found so far is the default browser can't be set via the normal gui app. Also vscode won't keep hidden files settings for browsing. I also am not using wayland, so perhaps that's also where a lot of issues come from?

[@fossmanmedia]

I was unable to find 'qemu-kvm' in the repositories, but just recently found out that it was changed to 'qemu-system' plan on posting another video explaining that most of my concerns that I mentioned were with the 'Gnome' desktop and not 'Debian'. I'll mention that too. Thank you for the feedback.

[@АлексейШилин-д1ф]

Eh, sorry, which virtualization package is missing again? Because qemu kvm works perfectly fine.

[@fossmanmedia]

The package I though was missing was 'qemu-kvm' but I've recently discovered that it was changed to 'kvm-system'. Plan on posting another video explaining that most of my concerns were with the deskop and not Debian, I'll mention that too.

[@АлексейШилин-д1ф]

@@fossmanmedia qemu-kvm was literally a one-line script which was simply launching qemu-system-x86_64 with -enable-kvm command line option. So yeah, it's not really required nowadays.

[@fossmanmedia]

Good to know. Feel a bit foolish. Nice to know there's an easy workaround. Thank you for the info.

[@Zinojn]

The issue you are having in that VM was resolved on my end by installing spice-vdagent (I connect to Vm through proxmox). It’s not that the exit buttons don’t work, it’s just that your mouse input is not lined up with the cursor

[@fossmanmedia]

Good to know as I don't have 'spice-vdagent' installed. Not really a fan of Wayland anyways, so switching back to x11 was the solution I took. Thank you for the info, may try that next time.

[@sergei8337]

why would anyone make qemu preinstalled by default on desktop system?!

[@fossmanmedia]

I believe it was provided by default because it was a small file that helped a great deal with the speed and quality of virtual desktop environments created on the system.

[@lfthb7tcjo75gid7jhajlniooj]

Wait till 12.5 or 12.6. Debian is a small team of devs compared to the big guys and large scale testing becomes an issue for them. I always wait for some months prior to updating with debian. After a few months it will be more stable than it ever was. Give it a try again if you can a few months later. You'll for sure love it then. And considering what's happening these days in the linux world, debian will become a better option for many if not all.

[@fossmanmedia]

That sounds like a good plan, think I'll take your advice. Thank you.

[@mzbro]

Couldn't agree more. I've installed Bookworm after so many positive reviews on YT, and then - seriously? Stable? Reliable? Wayland is bugged, flatpak provides bugged software. Will need to try something else, or stick with the reliable set - Cinnamon with system packages, optionally with few small packages on the side.

[@fossmanmedia]

Thank you. Also agree. I had to stop watching those reviews.

[@1234567qwerification]

I was going to try it, after using BunsenLabs for quite some time. Moreover, one of the ways to install BL was to install a basic Debian and then run a script to switch to BL. I had only a 1-GB flash drive to play with, where a netinstall Debian 12 would fit, but the BL wouldn't. But it broke the EFI partition 🤪

[@branislavmilosevic4289]

Debian 12.1 is still a mess. I encoutered bugs both with Gnome and KDE. There are no realible and stable distros this days. I think that quality of developers are dropping rapidly.

[@fossmanmedia]

Having a difficult time creating an argument. Thank you for the update on 'Debian 12.1' was starting to wonder if it was time yet to give it another try.

[@derekr54]

I have no problems with virtualisation and also some of your dislikes are not Debian's fault but vanilla Gnome quirks. I am running Debians with Gnome on both my Dell T1700 workstation and my Dell E6410 laptop without any problems at all.The differences between Gnome 43 and Gnome 44 which is on my ThickPad are not that great so my overall enjoyment is fine with both versions of Gnome and both Distro's. The main thing for me is updating my ThinkPad more frequently than my Debian devices.

[@fossmanmedia]

I agree. Most of my problems were with 'Wayland' and 'Gnome', Not Debain. I should have specified that more.

[@TrustJesusToday]

Debian 12.1 with KDE on four PCs...no issues.

[@fossmanmedia]

Haven't tried KDE on Debian yet, but good to know. Thank you.

[@gerald4674]

I agree with you. I’ve got a test machine with 10 SSD’s. Using Debian 8 on one just to host a Unifi controller for their AP. Only use it for firmware updates or changes such as adding a vlan. My machine has an Nvidia GPU. Mostly it’s not a problem for Arch or Debian based distros except for Debian. Noticed right away on first boot the systemd messages were low resolution. Desktop is 1920x1080 as are the few kernel messages. But not systemd. Debian 12 is worse. Starts out in high resolution until systemd. Same as 8. Spent most of the time configuring things before I noticed that using virtual terminal using tty that the right monitor turns off. A second or two later left monitor turns off while displaying the login to terminal in low res. Power down right monitor use Ctrl F1 to get back to login screen. So basically Debian has a long term issue going back to 8 with an added feature. Note that none of the other 8 distributions have this problem on the same hardware. Spent hours reading forums with other folks with similar issues. Most unsolved. On the nouveau driver all those issues go away but it doesn’t perform very well. Oh, since I’ve been using Linux distros I’ve hardly ever seen a splash screen lol. Manjaro Gnome works flawlessly on boot. Screens black. 10 seconds later login waiting. I rather enjoyed your rant. Someone else mentioned packages ripped from the repositories that they used in previous Debian such as 11.

[@fossmanmedia]

Thank you for all the useful info. Didn't realize those resolution and display issues went back that far. Good to know.

[@sergei8337]

No kvm module out of the box? No way. You sure? I'm not buying it.

[@fossmanmedia]

The kvm module was called 'qemu-kvm' (no longer in repositories) but I believe it has been replaced with 'kvm-system'. Which seems to be working, but have found it to be much slower. Almost as if the kernel modules are not being utilized. Still testing and trying alternatives.

[@1234567qwerification]

Some distro authors even don't include mc in the default installation.

[@ruirosado6289]

Foosman Media Hi! Maybe this will help you. The qemu package is now called qemu-system. Those black borders on the desktop look like an underscan misconfiguration. Perhaps it can be solved using xrandr and setting the underscan. I can't remenber if it's on or off. Or maybe you need to manually set the value. If you do so, don't forget to autostart the command. I would also install the firmware-linux package. Not all non-free necessary firmware was installed automatically. Maybe some of that can justify what was happening to the terminal close button and the power button, or maybe it's just Wayland like you said. You set the themes correctly but please don't forget the terminals also have their own preferences window and color settings. There you can set the terminal colors to correspond to the desktop theme colors. You are right about the system speed. It's slower. I blame systemd and Gnome. Sometimes i use KDE, also heavy, but at least they add features instead of subtracting. Maybe i misheard what you said but i found python3-flask, python3-django and python3-pip on the repos. But you are right about python2.7. That's a goner. I think many youtubers didn't find a huge problem right from the start because they didn't try an EFI instalalation on VBox. They either didn't use VBox or they disabled EFI for the instalation. I had to set the Paravirtualization Interface to 'None' or 'Legacy' for the instalation, otherwise it wouldn't proceed after the Grub menu. It says there's a problem with the fbdev driver. Anyway, i got the setting back to kvm after install.

[@fossmanmedia]

Thank you ruirosado6289! Had a look for that package (qemu-system) was able to find it and looks promising. I did change the preferences in the terminal though, but the changes didn't effect the title bar. Not a deal breaker just though it was strange. Don't see the point of setting the theme to 'dark' when it still has to be switched in 'Tweaks' also. I was able to find the Python packages you metioned, but couldn't get the Flask apps to run when I created them with the 'virtualenv' command. But everything works now when I use 'python3 -m venv name_of_environment' to create them. Thank you for all of the info, think I'll have another look.

[@jickjackyou]

I always find it humorous when "long time" GNU/Linux users have this impression that everything just works on GNU/Linux when in reality support for a lot of hardware/components is utter crap. I think partly it's that most folks just don't have experience with GNU/Linux on any substantial set of hardware over a long enough period to realize their personal experience isn't reality and they go on to exaggerate the support. It's not "Linux" that is the problem as the same sort of issues exist with Microsoft Windows at an even greater scale, but often people get a false impression because they bought a system with MS Windows so they think MS Windows works with everything when it most certainly doesn't and certainly not over time. Then they run to GNU/Linux on some ancient device and it mostly works. Well, OK, for some while anyway to some degree, maybe a proprietary component or another undermines support for power management, graphics, wifi, or something else, but it mostly works, and if you don't need 3d acceleration or you are always plugged in maybe it appears to always work for you.. that is until it stops because you've upgraded to a new release. You find the same thing in MS Windows land. I remember Vista coming out and 60% of the printers on the market didn't work with it (recently sold that is) and those that were sold six months old almost certainly didn't and wouldn't ever work with it. The nice thing about GNU/Linux is if you are actually conscious of why these devices don't work right or stop working you can begin to overcome the problem by buying hardware that doesn't suck. Unfortunately you can't just look for "Linux" on the box as most hardware that advertises it doesn't work or doesn't work properly humorously even from companies that target the GNU/Linux market. There are only a few outlets you can actually get hardware from that you can be confident is reliably supported. Most are super tiny outlets and only have a few items, but there is one that is much bigger. ThinkPenguin.com has a large catalog so you can find just about anything you need. The other place to look is www.fsf.org/ryf ... basically the FSF goes and certifies that the hardware you are buying has source code available. Honestly I wouldn't consider that to be adequate, but it's a good starting point. You really need hardware that 1. has source code available and 2. it's of a sufficient quality to end up in the mainline kernel and/or another major project. ThinkPenguin focuses on 1 and 2 so you can be confident at least everything in their catalog will work out of the box and will continue working down the road.

[@fossmanmedia]

Thank you for the links. Will most likely save some headaches down the road. Usually do a lot of research before buying new hardware and all of it seems to run well with just the opensource drivers. Just gets frustrating when everything works in one release and not the next (same hardware and distribution, different version). Couldn't agree more about MS Windows. I've had far more luck on getting hardware to function the way it sould with Linux. Especially with printers. Thanks for all of the great info. You've given me a lot to think about.

[@richardhartung1576]

i had some troubles with my bluetooth adapter, but solved it

[@fossmanmedia]

How so?

[@freakinccdevilleiv380]

Most Linux sucks. Nasty bloated images, long boot times, and always a hassle for the simplest of things. Best I've tried so far thankfully is Puppy Linux, it's simple but they made sure it just works. Best part is you're root with no login and you can do whatever you want without babysitting.

[@fossmanmedia]

Sounds great! I forgot all about Puppy Linux. Didn't know that about the root account though. Thanks for the tip.

[@TheYoungtrust]

qemu-system-x86_7.2+dfsg-7_amd64.deb is in bookworm did you use apt search? idk what went wrong for you or with your gnome de.

[@TheYoungtrust]

p.s. I just just a guess but this might happen if you copied over the iso with large blocksize on dd try the defaults

[@fossmanmedia]

Yup, I found it. Didn't know the package name was changed to 'qemu-system' from 'qemu-kvm'

[@TheYoungtrust]

@@fossmanmedia That's great!