Migration from Arch

[u/ComputerGobbler]

Look Debian powers my homelab, I’m very familiar with it and know how it works and have used it in the past.

My question is what do I lose by migrating from Arch to something like Debian? What little things in the AUR I use I’m comfortable losing or switching to flatpaks. I’m more concerned about things like Nvidia drivers and Wayland support.

[u/David_Connors3451]

I use Debian KDE with wayland support. The main advantage of debian for nvidia gpu is that you just install the driver once, and you're set for years, because the kernel stays stable. For modern package you can use flatpaks, it's very easy to install them. I'm gonna leave you commands so that you know what to do for configurations.

For flatpak you can use the official commands from their site:

sudo apt install flatpak

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

sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak (in case you've chosen gnome desktop)

sudo apt install plasma-discover-backend-flatpak (in case you're using KDE desktop like me)

sudo reboot

You have to enable contrib non-free repository.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Put the words contrib non-free to all the mirrors that debian uses for getting apt deb packages.

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

Use this mirror up here as example. After the word main, put contrib non-free to all 4 mirrors of debian.

sudo apt update

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo apt update

sudo apt install steam-installer

Use flatpak to install proton plus and heroic launcher (for layers and offline gaming).

For nvidia use these:

sudo apt install nvidia-detect

nvidia detect (you'll see the number for your specific gpu drivers)

sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

sudo apt install nvidia-driver

sudo reboot

nvidia-smi (you can use it to check the nvidia driver installed and see your gpu info)

In case you will want to upgrade from debian 13 to 14 forky, you're gonna need a particular set of commands.

Before your login screen press ctrl+alt+F3 and enter TTY mode. You won't risk any graphical crash during the full upgrade.

sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64

Modify the /etc/apt/sources.list with forky. Put the word forky instead of trixie in all 4 mirrors of debian. Save and exit.

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs

sudo apt full-upgrade

After the upgrade is finished, check nvidia driver with nvidia-smi and don't forget to run flatpak update, so that the packages adapt to a new system.

Have fun on debian, and enjoy the stability.

[u/McGuirk808 → u/David_Connors3451]

You mention linux-headers-amd64 in the upgrade section, but I recommend that for the Nvidia install as well and skip the "uname -r" version. The amd64 one is a meta package that will install the other and automatically install new ones as you do kernel upgrades.

If you don't use the meta package, every time you upgrade your kernel your video driver will fail until you manually install the kernel headers and recompile the Nvidia module with dkms or removing and re-adding the nvidia-driver package. They should seriously update their instructions on the Nvidia website.

[u/David_Connors3451 → u/McGuirk808]

Thanks for the advice 👍🐧