03. The Final Core Touch

Recap

In the previous post, we went over manual firmware setup, some tweaks to GRUB, and cleaning up packages. I also mentioned that it was the bulk of the boring setup. So, in this post, we will finish up the setup and finally be able to move on to other tasks more in line with what you'd think ricing is all about.

Core Dependencies

I never like to simply dump a command here without explaining what it does, but this will have to be the exception, and for good reason.
What the following command does is install all the dependencies needed for the rest of the series. I will come back and edit it to add a new dependency if the need arises. It is simply a measure to simplify the bulky procedure of keeping an eye on all the packages I install.

With that said:

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends build-essential libx11-dev libxft-dev libxinerama-dev libpam0g-dev libxcb-xkb-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxcb-res0-dev xserver-xorg-core xinit xserver-xorg-input-libinput xserver-xorg-video-intel mesa-va-drivers pipewire libharfbuzz-dev libgd-dev wireplumber pipewire-pulse libspa-0.2-bluetooth iwd curl git gpg unzip feh picom scrot brightnessctl

Quite a big command, but I will say this, each time I reach a point that uses a dependency, I'll make sure to make that loud and clear.

Sound & Audio

Time to setup sound!
Technically speaking, this step could have been postponed and delayed until audio is needed, but I prefer to set it up now.
Who doesn't love building out a new feature and having sound 'just work' because the foundation was already laid? I know I do.

To keep it simple, I'm using pipewire as the core audio engine, wireplumber as the session manager for it, pipewire-pulse to handle applications and services expecting PulseAudio, and libspa-0.2-bluetooth for Bluetooth audio codecs.

All that’s left to do is enable the services:

systemctl --user enable pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

It should work on the next reboot.

Network Setup Finally!

Ethernet is automatically handled by the Debian install by default, since you need a way to be able to connect to the network. Wi-Fi on the other hand has a trickier situation, as drivers and managers differ.
To compile the following instructions, I ran a standard Debian live USB to figure out how to get Wi-Fi going. I am using iwd for this, here is what I got:

Open/Create the iwd main config file:

sudo nano /etc/iwd/main.conf

Write the following lines:

[General]
EnableNetworkConfiguration=true

What this does is tell iwd to handle DHCP automatically, so no need for even dhcpcd or systemd-networkd.

Now we enable and start iwd:

sudo systemctl enable --now iwd

IMPORTANT, iwlwifi (or other) should be active, otherwise iwd won't function.

Things get weird from here, but I'll try to keep it standard and simple. I'll go by the assumption that the interface is called wlan0. For me, before iwd was running, it was called wlo1 and then it changed.

But to verify the interface name:

ip link

Or:

iwctl device list

Up next:

iwctl adapter phy0 set-property Powered on 

Whatever I tried, it didn't work for me until I powered on phy0. I'm assuming it represents the actual physical device, as in the physical wifi card.

Then it was simple from there:

iwctl station wlan0 scan
iwctl station wlan0 get-networks

Now, select a Wi-Fi network and connect:

iwctl --passphrase "PASSWORD" station wlan0 connect "SSID"

Or if the Wi-Fi network doesn't have a password:

iwctl station wlan0 connect "SSID"

To check if the interface connected:

iwctl station wlan0 show

In a minimal setup without a separate network manager or systemd-resolved, Linux won't automatically know how to resolve domain names into IP addresses.

To fix this, append a free public DNS server to the system resolver file:

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

In there, write the IP address of the free, public Cloudflare DNS resolver:

nameserver 1.1.1.1

Or the IP address of some other DNS resolver.

It should be set now.

Wrapping Up

With this, the core setup of the Debian machine is wrapped up. In upcoming posts, we can finally deal with new things.

Written on: 2026-07-25