Installation

Hardware Requirements

Any modern computer will handle decibel Linux and professional audio applications in general, as long as it’s a recent multi-core processor with 16+GB of RAM. You also need a hard drive with a minimum speed of 7200 RPM. An SSD or M.2 boot/work drive is helpful – but not necessary. Legacy BIOS is no longer supported, but you are welcome to install on a legacy BIOS machine if you know what to do. Only EFI is now officially supported.

Acquire a boot medium. The recommended boot medium is SystemRescueCd. You can use any boot medium that gives you access to your hard drive, allows you to chroot, supports bash, and has dialog/whiptail and python 3.5 or higher.

Using these instructions means you assume all risk for data loss. The installer WILL wipe the drive you select. If dual-booting, back up your files.

Only the amd64 architecture is supported. There are no plans to include any other architectures.

Installer

To use the installer, boot up with SystemRescueCD and once at the prompt, type:

wget https://decibellinux.org/src/install_dblinux.shchmod +x install_dblinux.sh./install_dblinux.sh

Note that you need an EFI system for the installer, along with a dedicated hard disk that your system’s BIOS is expecting to boot with.

Dual-Boot Prep for Windows 11

So you just bought a new computer pre-loaded with Windows 11. You’d like to keep Windows and install decibel Linux. Follow these steps to prep a new system for dual-boot using a single hard drive or SSD. These instructions assume you are using System Rescue CD, but you may use a bootable medium of your choice if you know what you are doing.

  1. Disable secure boot in your BIOS.
  2. Boot up with System Rescue CD. Make sure you startx.
  3. Run gparted.
  4. Select the main data partition.
  5. Partition -> Resize/Move.
  6. Change the “Free space following” number to 250000. This creates a partition for decibel Linux 250 GB in size. Adjust this to your preference.
  7. Click “Resize/Move”.
  8. Click the green check mark.
  9. Click Apply.
  10. Select the unallocated space.
  11. Partition -> New.
  12. The defaults should create a new primary partition formatted in ext4. Click Add.
  13. Click the green check mark.
  14. Click Apply. Make note of your new root partition and the boot partition. You will not need to create a swap partition, and a boot partition should already exist. Exit gparted.
  15. Open a terminal window and continue with “Mounting partitions” below. Substitute the correct partitions for /dev/sda4 (root) and /dev/sda2 (boot).

Manual Install

For dual-boot users, you will need to handle the partitioning scheme on your own and adjust these instructions accordingly. Note that if you are dual-booting, you do not want to mklabel, you may or may not be able to apply partition names, and your boot label may or may not already be set. User takes all responsibility for the results of performing these steps.

DO NOT COPY AND PASTE. Type these instructions into your terminal and double-check for typos.

These are the steps that the automated installer uses.

Once you’ve booted with your boot medium, you need to partition the hard drive (/dev/sda used here, adjust accordingly if this is not the disk you are using) using the following steps:

  1. fdisk /dev/sda
  2. g (creates new disk label)
  3. n (new partition)
  4. [enter] (press enter to accept the default first sector)
  5. +1G (make the partition 1 GB in size)
  6. If there is an existing signature, you should say Y to remove it
  7. t (change partition type)
  8. 1 (use first partition)
  9. 1 (change it to type 1 – EFI System)
  10. x (expert mode)
  11. u (make partition conform to Discoverable System Partition specs)
  12. 1 (partition to change)
  13. c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b (the partition’s new UUID)
  14. r (return to main menu)
  15. n
  16. 2 (second partition)
  17. [enter] to accept default first sector
  18. +4G (swap partition 4 GB in size. This partition is cursory and is not expected to be used)
  19. t
  20. 2
  21. 19 (changes partition 2 to swap)
  22. x
  23. u
  24. 2
  25. 0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f (set swap partition’s UUID)
  26. r
  27. n
  28. 3
  29. [enter]
  30. [enter] (accept default first and last sectors to use up the rest of the disk for root partition)
  31. t
  32. 3
  33. 23 (set partition to type Linux Root)
  34. x
  35. u
  36. 3
  37. 4f68bce3-e8cd-4db1-96e7-fbcaf984b709 (set root partition’s UUID)
  38. r
  39. p (print partition layout to screen – see example below to confirm)
  40. w (save partition layout)

Your partition layout should look like this:

Device        Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048    2099199    2097152     1G EFI System
/dev/sda2   2099200   10487807    8388608     4G Linux swap
/dev/sda3  10487808 1953523711 1943035904 926.5G Linux root (x86-64)

Formatting partitions

Execute the following commands to format your new partitions:

mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1
mkswap /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
swapon /dev/sda2

Mounting partitions:

Now mount the hard drive and install the base system:

mkdir --parents /mnt/gentoo/efi
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/gentoo
cd /mnt/gentoo
wget https://decibellinux.org/src/decibellinux-latest.tar.xz
tar xpvf decibellinux-stage4.tar.bz2 --xattrs-include='*.*' --numeric-owner

Chrooting

Chroot into the base system and configure:

  1. cp --dereference /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/ (y if asked to to overwrite)
  2. mount -t proc /proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
  3. mount --rbind /sys /mnt/gentoo/sys
  4. mount --rbind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
  5. mount --make-rslave /mnt/gentoo/sys
  6. mount --make-rslave /mnt/gentoo/dev
  7. mount --bind /run /mnt/gentoo/run
  8. mount --make-slave /mnt/gentoo/run
  9. chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
  10. source /etc/profile
  11. emerge-webrsync
    • (If you happen to install a Decibel Linux tarball that was produced that day, you may get a warning that the timestamps are the same. This is fine. Proceed to follow the next steps.)
  12. eix-sync
  13. ln -sf ../usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Brussels /etc/localtime
    • (Choose your actual time zone here)
  14. Locale?
  15. nano /etc/fstab
    • Make sure the line for /dev/sda2 has filesystem type vfat.
    • Your fstab should look something like this (Ctrl-o to save, Ctrl-x to exit):
    • /dev/sda1      /efi       vfat      umask=0077            0 2
      /dev/sda2      none       swap      sw                    0 0
      /dev/sda3      /          ext4      defaults,noatime      0 1
  16. mount /dev/sda1 /efi
  17. grub-install --efi-directory=/efi
  18. If you are dual-booting with Windows:
    1. emerge os-prober
    2. Add GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false to /etc/default/grub
  19. grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  20. passwd (Sets root password)
  21. useradd -m -G users,wheel,audio,plugdev -s /bin/bash (username)
    • (If you get an error about a mailbox file, ignore it.)
  22. passwd (username)
  23. cpuid2cpuflags >> /etc/portage/make.conf
    • MAKE SURE THIS IS A DOUBLE BRACKET. >> NOT >
  24. nano /etc/portage/make.conf and edit the CPU_FLAGS_X86 line so it looks similar to this: CPU_FLAGS_X86="mmx sse sse2"
  25. emerge -auDN --keep-going --with-bdeps=y --backtrack=250 @system @world
    • This recompiles any packages that use CPU-specific flags. Also note that while it’s tempting to skip this step and boot into your system, this world update helps make sure your system is updated and working correctly on first boot. If you encounter Portage errors such as conflicts and blocks and can’t scroll up, it’s fine to reboot into your new system and try it again there.
  26. Shutdown, remove boot medium, and start up.
  27. On your first login, you will need to change the session to Xfce using the login manager menu in the upper right corner.

If you are dual-booting with Windows 11, and you notice GRUB doesn’t even show, you may need to start Windows, open a command line as administrator and run:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi

Before setting this in Windows, double-check this path by booting up with System Rescue CD and mounting the boot partition somewhere.

You should now have a working Decibel Linux workstation.

Notes:

  • Do NOT update /etc/security/limits.conf. Those settings are there for a reason.
  • If you dual-boot with Windows and need to re-install Windows, you will need to chroot into Decibel Linux, re-install grub and run grub-mkconfig again. Windows installs its own bootloader and you will need to replace it with Grub.