Debian on Metabox Alpha-S NP50HJ

Installing Debian Bullseye on a Metabox Alpha-S NP50HJ with these specs:

CPU: 11th Gen Intel® 8 Core™ i7-11800H
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050
Wireless: Intel AX201 Dual Band WIFI/BTv5.1

Get CD image (11.1.0 non-free)

On an existing operating system:

Download checksum and signature files:
- https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/11.1.0+nonfree/amd64/jigdo-cd/SHA256SUMS
- https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/11.1.0+nonfree/amd64/jigdo-cd/SHA256SUMS.sign
Do a jigdo download,
```
$ sudo apt install jigdo-file
$ jigdo-lite
```
using the following parameters when prompted:
- URL: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/11.1.0+nonfree/amd64/jigdo-cd/firmware-11.1.0-amd64-netinst.jigdo
- Files to scan: (none)
- Debian mirror: (default)
This results in firmware-11.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso.

Verify the image:

$ gpg --keyserver hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: key DA87E80D6294BE9B: public key "Debian CD signing key <debian-cd@lists.debian.org>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.sign SHA256SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sun 10 Oct 2021 05:22:44 AWST
gpg:                using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: Good signature from "Debian CD signing key <debian-cd@lists.debian.org>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: DF9B 9C49 EAA9 2984 3258  9D76 DA87 E80D 6294 BE9B

$ sha256sum firmware-11.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso
baab78aa4dac175511915a20b095da69131ef5c84b73e637a6933c03b561cdfd  firmware-11.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso

All good.

Put CD image onto USB

Still on the existing operating system:

Use lsblk to check which disk the USB is (/dev/sdb in my case)
Unmount the USB
Copy the image onto the USB as a whole-disk device (NOT a partition):
```
$ sudo cp firmware-11.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso /dev/sdb; sync
```

Install from USB onto Metabox

Hold F7
Power on
Choose boot from USB

Follow the installer prompts. The wireless connection should work fine for the Intel AX201 (assuming you are using the non-free Debian image).

Then reboot.

Internet connection

After booting into the installed system, you will need to establish an internet connection. I was lazy so I used the ethernet.

Run ip l to determine the name of the interface (in my case, enp2s0 for the ethernet)
Run sudo dhclient enp2s0

`apt install` a bunch of stuff

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install \
    network-manager \
    mate-desktop-environment-core \
      mate-power-manager \
      mate-utils \
      mate-screensaver \
    lightdm \
    locate \
    tlp \
    curl \
    p7zip-full \
    git \
    python3-pip python3-gi-cairo \
    make \
    default-jdk \
    firefox-esr chromium \
    pluma \
      dos2unix glogg jq \
    atril \
      xournal \
      diffpdf \
    mtpaint \
      eom \
    npm \
    adb \
    fontforge \
    lilypond \
    ffmpeg vlc vlc-plugin-fluidsynth \
    texlive-full \
      ipe pdftoipe \
    fonts-noto-cjk \
    libreoffice \

NVIDIA

From <https://wiki.debian.org/NVIDIA%20Optimus#Methods>:

[…]

To summarize the different approaches you can take that are supported in Debian:

Using PRIME Render Offload - Theoretically, with Debian 11 (or newer), special configuration shouldn't be needed and offloading should be available as soon as you've installed the proprietary drivers, at least as far as the internal screen and any display outputs wired to the onboard GPU are concerned. Making this work with display outputs that are wired to the discrete GPU requires some manual configuration. See the relevant section for more details.

[…]

From <https://wiki.debian.org/NVIDIA%20Optimus#PRIMEOffload>

Using NVIDIA PRIME Render Offload

This method makes the most effective use of Optimus-capable hardware and is the recommended approach for any user who is willing to rely on the proprietary NVIDIA driver.

[…]

The only requirements are to install the proprietary drivers (As per the NvidiaGraphicsDrivers page) and then run your application with the __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 environment variable set, and in some cases (e.g. for GLX applications), the __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia environment variable set (or the __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia-current environment variable, if it's installed an older driver).

[…]

<https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#nvidia-detect> recommends using the nvidia-detect script (from the non-free nvidia-detect package). Therefore we do the following:

$ sudo apt install nvidia-detect

$ nvidia-detect
Detected NVIDIA GPUs:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GA107 [10de:25a2] (rev a1)

Checking card:  NVIDIA Corporation GA107 (rev a1)
Your card is supported by the default drivers.
Your card is also supported by the Tesla 460 drivers series.
It is recommended to install the
    nvidia-driver
package.

$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver

Then reboot. Anecdotally this improves the battery life by about 20%.

Signal Desktop

From <https://signal.org/download/>:

# NOTE: These instructions only work for 64 bit Debian-based
# Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Mint etc.

# 1. Install our official public software signing key
wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --dearmor > signal-desktop-keyring.gpg
cat signal-desktop-keyring.gpg | sudo tee -a /usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg > /dev/null

# 2. Add our repository to your list of repositories
echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main' |\
  sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list

# 3. Update your package database and install signal
sudo apt update && sudo apt install signal-desktop

Android Studio

After extracting android-studio-2020.3.1.26-linux.tar.gz, make sure the following are executable (using chmod +x):
```
bin/studio.sh
bin/fsnotifier64
jre/bin/java
jre/bin/keytool
```
Ensure that whatever compileSdkVersion you have in the project gradle is actually installed in the SDK manager.

For details, see "Could not create task ':app:minifyReleaseWithR8'. Cannot query the value of this provider because it has no value available" <https://stackoverflow.com/q/64459937>.

Vivaldi

From <https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/manual-setup-vivaldi-linux-repositories/>:

Import the public key (to allow for verification of the APT repository)–triple-click to select the entire line
wget -qO- https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/linux_signing_key.pub | gpg --dearmor | sudo dd of=/usr/share/keyrings/vivaldi-browser.gpg
Add the repository–triple-click to select the entire line
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/vivaldi-browser.gpg arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/deb/ stable main" | sudo dd of=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/vivaldi-archive.list
Install Vivaldi
sudo apt update && sudo apt install vivaldi-stable

Cite this page

Conway (2022). Debian on Metabox Alpha-S NP50HJ. <https://yawnoc.github.io/code/metabox-np50hj> Accessed yyyy-mm-dd.