Random notes from installing Debian 11 with separate accounts for work and private

March 24, 2022

See especially the end for info about how to set up a nice integration between the work and private accounts, such that one can e.g. occasionally start the mail client or web browser from the private account from the work one etc.

Caveats when installing Debian 11

Make sure that an EFI partition is created (when I manually modified the partition table I accidentally deleted it, and had to reinstall to get it created properly again).
Had to turn off safe boot in BIOS
Had to set SATA settings to AHCI
Had to manually create a boot option with the path to
```
\EFI\debian\grubx64.efi
```
in BIOS settings

Instructions for configuring Debian to my liking

Add current user to sudo
- Switch user to root:
```
usermod -aG sudo <username>
```
- Log out and back the user
Uncomment CDROM remotes in /etc/apt/sources.list
Change default search engine in firefox to duckduckgo
Replace applications menu with whiskers menu

Install some packages:

sudo apt install vim git tig tmux curl tree rsync gparted
    ecryptfs-utils redshift bash-completion bluez blueman

Clone rc folder:

git clone https://github.com/samuell/rc.git

Link rc files:
```
ln -s rc/.{b,v,t}* .
```
Create empty .bash_aliases_local:
```
touch ~/.bash_aliases_local
```

Activate in bashrc:

cat 'if [ -f ~/.bashrc_mods ]; then . ~/.bashrc_mods; fi' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

Install vim-plug:

curl -fLo ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

Run :PlugInstall in vim:
```
vim -c ":PlugInstall" -c "qa!"
```

In “Keyboard settings > Application shortcuts” add two shortcuts:

xfce4-popup-whiskermenu    # Ctrl+Esc
xfce4-terminal --drop-down # Super+Space

Open the terminal with Win+Space, and configure:
- Set width to 100%
- Uncheck always show tabs
- Uncheck show menubar in new windows
- Configure color to more pastel like colors according to my new method
In Appearance…
- Set style to “Adwaita-dark”
- Set fonts to “Adwaita”
- Set main font to “Sans Regular 8”
- Let main monospace font be “Monospace Regular 10”
In terminal preferences, set font to “Monospace Regular 10”
In Window manager, set shortcuts:
- Tile window up/down/left/right: Super up/down/left/right
- Move window Ctrl+Alt+F
- Resize window Ctrl+Alt+R
Install and configure Brave browser
Encrypt home folder

Set up separate work and private accounts

Create the separate accounts
Encrypt folder of both

In order to run private commands from the work account and vice versa:

Make sure both users are logged in on the system (so that home folders are unencrypted)

Run:

xhost local:<other-user>; sudo -i -u <other-user>

Now you have a terminal for the other user, and can start applications such as Thunderbird: thunderbird &

How to fix broken grub

From time to time, I seem to have my grub broken. It could be due to a harddrive failure perhaps.

The procedure to fix this is quite generally useful though :

Boot with a live stick (could be even an ubuntu stick)
sudo su

Given that /dev/sda2 is your main partition and /dev/sda1 your boot partition:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
for i in proc sys dev; do mount --bind $i /mnt/$i; done
chroot /mnt
apt install grub-pc-bin grub-efi

Possibly run:
```
fsck -f /dev/sda1
```

And then:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi /dev/sda1

Reboot

Then, the efi location seem to easily be lost in BIOS, especially if the BIOS battery is bad. If so:

Get into BIOS (F2 key on boo)
Settings > General > Boot sequence
Click “Add Boot Option”
Add a name, e.g. “Debian”
On File Name, click the “…” button to locate
```
\EFI\debian\grubx64.efi
```
Save and reboot

Linux
Debian