After a long journey, I finally found the distribution which fits
all my need: Linux Mint Debian Edition
Why ?
- It is based on debian a distribution which I really like (and not Ubuntu).
- The default tilling (similar to W7) is really comfortable.
- Lot of configuration can be done for shortcuts.
- Support for
systemd
(Yay \o/).
- Beautiful UI out of the box (which I didn’t have with TWM).
- And a lot more
Installation
As I am on Macbook (once upon a time, I was young and dumb), I need a
particular configuration of the partitions for the installation.
Here is how my HDD is partitionned:
- First, the
/boot/efi
partition with the boot flag is about 200MB
- Then the Macintosh partition, in hfs+
- The
/boot
, partition, as I will use LVM I need to have an external
partition to hold the initram images, with an ext4 filesystem.
- Finally, the LVM partition which is subdivided in two partitions:
- lvm_root: which will hold the root filesystem
- lvm_swap: my system swap
Mount the partitions in the right order into /mnt/target
, follow the
expert disk partioning in the installation wizard.
Install LVM into the new system (with chroot), then fillup the fstab file
to look similar to something like this:
/dev/mapper/vg_ssd-lv_root / ext4 rw,relatime,discard,data=ordered 0 1
/dev/mapper/vg_ssd-lv_swap none swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 /boot ext4 defaults 0 2
/dev/sda2 /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 2
Configuration
Now that we have a running distribution there is some small details to fix.
Here are some piece of configuration I needed to fix to have a satisfying
install.
Chromium as default
First, I want to use chromium as the default browser, simply install it with
the package manager, then just run the Preferred Application
program to
setup the default.
Microphone issue
As I use a Macbook I have an issue with my mic by default. To fix that, just
create the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
file, and just past the following:
options snd-hda-intel model=mbp101 index=1
Reboot, and tadaaa!
Systemd
By default, on LMDE Betsy (my current installation), the init system is
still sysvinit.
I really like systemd and good news the skeleton of it is already present,
so we just have to explain the system to change.
And… it is simpler as I firstly thought, because there is a package for
that: systemd-sysv
.
Just run the installation and you will be good
Powertop
As systemd is already installed, here is the service file:
/etc/systemd/system/powertop.service
[Unit]
Description=Powertop tunings
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/powertop --auto-tune
Environment="TERM=xterm"
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Note: I had to install xterm
in order to make the service work, because
powertop needs a shell at runtime to perform the auto-tune statement.
It is a systemd service which will be loaded at startup, so just enable it:
systemctl enable powertop
Skype
This one is easy, but I also want my beautiful cinnamon skin on it ;)
Just download and install the .deb file from
here
Enable multiple architecture if you are running x86_64 distribution:
dpkg --add-architecture i386
And now install some complementary packages:
apt-get install gtk2-engines-murrine:i386 gtk2-engines-pixbuf:i386
Last word
This article will evolve to fit the latest change on my system, stay tuned!