The perfect Linux Install Guide
This is my guide on how to get a perfect linux install
To start the post, this will a much longer one than usual. This is a very complex guide and do need some Linux skill. The perfect install isn’t just what one person thinks it what the user likes so make sure you customise your install.
To start you need the base.
This is just one of the decisions you will have to make along making your perfect install. Here are the main ones as of time of writing.
| Distro name | Type and stable or testing |
|---|---|
| Debian 13 | Debian based - testing for up to date packages |
| Fedora 40 | Red Hat based - up to date stable version |
| Arch Linux | Arch Linux based - Rolling release |
Note some distros are harder to install than others, if the Debian one is too hard I recommend LMDE 6 as it has an easy installer. For arch you can use the arch install script or someone else if you need.
Then you have to decide what desktop environment you want to use here are just a few
| Desktop environment | Install method | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hyprland | 3RD party install script or built your self | A fancy window tiling manager. |
| Gnome | Via any package manager | Pretty standard |
| KDE | Via any package manager | Same as GNOME |
| XFCE | Via any package manager | Same as above |
| DWM | Built from source with make | Tiling window manager built in C |
This is arguably the hardest decision to make as this is essentially what you will be permanently looking at and using. For Hyrland and DWM, you have to either install it with an install script or use 'make' (for DWM). Also, note that for DWM, there are customized versions out there like the Chris Titus version. There are also many Hyprland dot files by JaKooLit. To install DWM, clone, for example, Titus’s repo mentioned above and use 'make && sudo make install'. For Hyprland, use this install script also by JakooLit, which I use and daily drive. Note that it has to be run on Debian 13/SID because dependencies are much older on other versions and don’t work. Note: the LightDM login manager didn’t detect Hyprland, so use SDDM. To install GNOME see snippets below
# debian
sudo apt install gnome/stable -y
# fedora
sudo dnf install switchdesk
sudo switchdesk gnome
# arch, you have to xorg/wayland and a login manager for this method and let's be real if you know arch you wouldn't install arch
sudo pacman -S gnomeYou can find similar snippets for other Desktop environment (which I will call DE from now on). Moving on to theming the default look for your chosen DE might not fit your tastes and themes for KDE, XFCE and gnome are easy to install. The easiest way to cross DE to theme is use lxapperance and have GTK themes downloaded and icon themes, if you use pling use OCS url to put them to the correct folder snd then use lxapperance to choose it. Now moving on to GRUB theming as I don’t have the space to write all about them, here is a link to ChrisTitus’s great guide plus install script for all distros. Something that you do with grub is a dual boot so in my set up I boot of my external SSD (just a 500GB Samsung T7) and get a grub menu where I can choose between windows and Debian. I hope you enjoyed this guide and hope you have used this to make your perfect system.