Getting an up-to-date Debian

I have a Librem 15v4. Last year I finally gave up on waiting for Crimson and just went the Debian route to the then-latest, 12/bookworm.
Experience discussed here: PureOS Crimson (Debian 12) on Librem 15 / Librem 13 (x86-64) - #10 by JJR

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I’ve been thinking of doing that as well. I acquired a 2007 iMac (64-bit Intel chip) that was supposedly dead, but it really wasn’t. I tried to put PureOS on it but got stymied by 2 non-free firmware bits: Broadcom Wi-Fi chip and AMD video chip. I tried hard to get the bits from the Debian repo, but I could not make it work. So I blew off PureOS, burned a CD with the Debian 12 netinstall, booted off that and Voila! The Debian installer recognized that it needed those 2 non-free firmware bits and offered to DL and install them. I said “do it” and it worked flawlessly. I’m running Debian 12 “Bookworm” on a 17-year-old machine while my 6-year-old Librem 15v4 is still stuck on a Debian 11 variant. That’s lame, so I’m on the verge… :sunglasses:

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I’m also running Debian 12 on a Lenovo Ideapad as my travel computer, especially for overseas trips. (I’m reluctant to take the Librem out of the house/country). The troubles I hear with the Librem 14 (not to mention the $$$), which would be the obvious choice for a travel comp, have given me pause, which is why I went for a throwaway Windows cheapie like the Lenovo. It does have a cover for the camera (which is why I chose it), and I insert one of these into the headphone jack, so it does a reasonably passable job of blocking. Even with only 8Gb RAM, it stills runs pretty snappily, but you have to watch out you don’t open too many apps :wink:

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I also have a Librem 14v1 as a backup computer, but I like the bigger screen and numeric keypad on the Librem 15v4, so I’m still using it as my main box. It’s plenty fast for my needs. At home I run a 22" monitor off the side even though I know the Librem 14v1 will run two external monitors.

When I went to Germany a few years ago I only took a phone and an iPad. Nobody going or returning bothered me about what data I had, but I didn’t want to risk any trouble with a Purism box. :sunglasses:

I’ve been helping people put Debian on old boxes such as Dell laptops and iMacs, and I get a kick out of helping people keep using their old boxes instead of them ending up in the grinder or, worse, the landfill.

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Installing Linux distributions on old computers for newly converted Linux users occurs often in VanLUG.

I bet plenty of LUGs are into this. The one I go to seems to have more non-newbies, but I’ve just helped a newbie get Debian onto a Dell laptop.

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