Debian 11 Linux Setup Guide

For ThinkStation P360 Tower, Tiny, Ultra

Table of Contents
Section 1 – BIOS Configuration .............................................................................. 3
Section 2 – Installing Debian 11 .............................................................................. 6
Section 3 – Wireless Connection .......................................................................... 19
Section 5 – Installing the Nvidia Graphics Driver .................................................. 25
Revision History .................................................................................................... 37

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Section 1 – BIOS Configuration
The first step before installing Linux is to make sure the system BIOS is setup
correctly.

• Boot into BIOS by pressing the function F1 key at the “Lenovo” splash
screen.

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• On the “Security” menu tab, scroll down and select the “Secure Boot”
option.

•
• Check whether Secure Boot is disabled. If found enabled, disable it.

4
• Save changes by pressing F10 function key.

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Section 2 – Installing Debian 11
Please refer to the following instructions and screenshots on how to install Debian
11 on the Lenovo ThinkStation P360.

• Insert the Debian 11 installation media (either through USB or CD/DVD).

• Power on the system and press the F12 function key whenever the
following Lenovo splash screen appears.

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• Select the Linux bootable installation media from the F12 boot menu list.

• Select “Graphical install” from the GRUB boot menu and press enter.

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• Select the appropriate language and press Continue.

• Select the user location and press Continue.

8
• Configure the keyboard by choosing the appropriate keyboard language
and press Continue.

• Enter a hostname for the system and select Continue.

9
• Enter a domain name and select Continue. If there is no domain in the
environment just leave it blank.

• Set a root password and select Continue.

10
• Enter a full name for the user and select Continue.

• Enter a username to create a user and press Continue.

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• Create a strong password for the newly created user and press Continue.

• Select an appropriate time zone to configure the clock and press Continue.

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• Choose an appropriate option for partitioning the disk. If the user selects
“Guided – use entire disk”, Debian will erase the content and use the entire
disk for OS installation.

• Select disk to partition and press Continue.

13
• Select “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk” option after confirming
the partitions and press Continue.

• Select “Yes” to write changes to the disk and press Continue.

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 • Select “No” for network mirror and select Continue.
Note: Debian can be installed with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) or a
Command Line Interface (CLI). To install Debian 11 with a GUI, connect the
system to the internet and select “No” to continue without a network mirror. If "Yes"
is selected, the system will be installed as a CLI only.

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• Choose to participate or not in the package usage survey and press
Continue.

• Select the correct location and press Continue.

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• Select the mirror and select Continue.

• Choose software to install from the list of software and press Continue.

• Optionally, you can select as many of these settings as you would like, for
this installation process will be selected default software.

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• Remove the installation media and reboot the system by pressing
Continue.

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Section 3 – Wireless Connection
Before the next steps ensure you have connected to LAN network.
To install the Wifi drivers complete the next steps:

• Download the appropriate driver for your card from

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005511/wirel
ess.html

Notes: 1 – For this example, Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 has been used.
2 - In some cases, GitHub clone* may be needed to find all necessary files to
complete the installation (for Intel AX201 file iwlwifi-so-a0-hr-b0-68.ucode need to
be added to /lib/firmware).

*GitHub clone - https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-

firmware.git/tree/

• Extract the files from download file

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• Copy extracted files to /lib/firmware

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• Add "contrib" and "non-free" components to /etc/apt/sources.list.

#Debian Sid
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free

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• Update the list of available packages and install the firmware-
iwlwifi package:
# apt update && apt install firmware-iwlwifi

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• As the iwlwifi module is automatically loaded for supported devices,
reinsert this module to access installed firmware:
# modprobe -r iwlwifi ; modprobe iwlwifi

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• After restart Wifi options should appear in the network manager.

• Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

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Section 4 – Installing the Nvidia Graphics
Driver
To get optimal performance out of the Nvidia GPU, it is a good idea to install the
Nvidia graphics driver.
Note: Before installing the drivers, you must obtain the proper kernel headers for
the NVIDIA driver to build with.

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 • Run this command, you can simply run
#apt install linux-headers-amd64

Note: If you're using the kernel from Debian Backports:

Add bullseye-backports as an additional new line to your /etc/apt/sources.list, for
example:

# bullseye-backports
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free

And run the same command but with the -t flag followed by bullseye-backports.

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• Add "contrib" and "non-free" components to /etc/apt/sources.list.

#Debian Sid
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free

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• Update the list of available packages #apt update

• Install Nvidia drivers #apt install nvidia-driver firmware-misc-nonfree

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• During configuration select “Yes” to restart services during package
upgrades without asking

• Then click “OK”

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 • Restart your system to load the new driver.

In case you desire to install a specific Nvidia driver please follow the next steps:

• Download the latest Nvidia graphics driver for the appropriate Nvidia GPU
from www.nvidia.com/download
• To get the Nvidia driver running, we will need to blacklist the nouveau
driver. Follow the steps below:
o Log in as root: su
o Open blacklist.conf file: nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-
nouveau.conf
o Blacklist nouveau driver by writing: blacklist nouveau options
nouveau modeset=0

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• Run the command: update-initramfs -u

• Stop x-windows by using the command: systemctl set-default multi-

user.target

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• Then restart restart the system by: systemctl reboot
• Log in as root and redirect to the directory where the Nvidia driver is
located.

• Run the Nvidia installer by: bash NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-390.144.run

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• Select Continue installation.

• Wait until the kernel modules are completely built.

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• Select Yes for installing 32-bit compatibility libraries.

• Wait until the installation is complete.

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• Select Yes to run nvidia-xconfig utility to automatically update your X
configuration file.

• Select OK once the X configuration file gets updated successfully.

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• Enable GUI by: systemctl set-default graphical.target

• Execute the following command to verify the Nvidia driver is loaded: nvidia-
smi

• Reboot the system.

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Revision History

Version Date Author Changes/Updates

1.1 7/12/2022 Aleksandr Added support for P360 Ultra

Panteleev
1.0 5/17/2022 Aleksandr Initial release
Panteleev

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