A fully loaded Debian 13 system

Now here’s something you can’t do with Microsoft Windows – install a fully loaded Debian 13 system in a single command. In this article we are going to install a whole shedload of applications all at once with a single shell command – albeit quite a long one! This is a quick and easy way to add a massive bundle of extra apps that I, and many of the users I support, find useful and/or enjoyable. 

• Install Debian 13. Part 1 of our “Moving to Debian” series
• A fully loaded Debian 13 system. Part 2 of our “Moving to Debian” series (you are here).

Included in the bundle

Edit your software sources file

Open a terminal (Konsole or similar) and type (or copy and paste) the following, then hit return key:-

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

It will look something like this:-

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 13.1.0 _Trixie_ - Official amd64 NETINST with firmware 20250906-10:22]/ trixie contrib main non-free-firmware

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main non-free-firmware

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main non-free-firmware

# trixie-updates, to get updates before a point release is made;
# see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_updates_and_backports
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main non-free-firmware

# This system was installed using removable media other than
# CD/DVD/BD (e.g. USB stick, SD card, ISO image file).
# The matching "deb cdrom" entries were disabled at the end
# of the installation process.
# For information about how to configure apt package sources,
# see the sources.list(5) manual.

Edit the your /etc/apt/sources.list  so it looks like this. In a nutshell you are adding “Proposed Upgrades” and “Backports” repositories.  NB the words after the “#” Character are comments and make no difference to what the file actually does. 

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 13.1.0 _Trixie_ - Official amd64 NETINST with firmware 20250906-10:22]/ trixie contrib main non-free-firmware

# Normal stuff.
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb-src https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

# Security. 
deb https://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb-src https://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

# Updates, to get updates before a point release is made.
# see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_updates_and_backports
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb-src https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

# Proposed updates.
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-proposed-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb-src https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-proposed-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

# Backports.
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb-src https://deb.debian.org/debian/ trixie-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

# This system was installed using small removable media
# (e.g. netinst, live or single CD). The matching "deb cdrom"
# entries were disabled at the end of the installation process.
# For information about how to configure apt package sources,
# see the sources.list(5) manual.

Press ctrl+x keys to save the file and then press the return key to confirm.

Update your system

 Then we need to see if there are any upgrades and install them. You can do this on a single line:-

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

Install software bundle

This command is actually all on one line – even though it appears to wrap around several lines:-

sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https audacity bleachbit blender calligra chromium curl darktable dstat dwww exfalso expect f3 falkon fcrackzip flatpak fortune-mod fortunes-min fractalnow fractgen fraqtive freecad gedit gimp gimp-data-extras gimp-help-en-gb gimp-texturize gir1.2-vte-2.91 git gnome-cards-data gnome-disk-utility gnome-games gnucash gqrx-sdr grsync handbrake handbrake-gtk hashdeep icc-profiles-free inkscape ioping iotop k3b kaffeine kde-full kdenlive kdeutils keepassx kid3 krename krita krusader lhasa libdvdcss2 libgle3 libgtk2.0-0 libimlib2 libjpeg-turbo-progs libkf5emoticons5 libreoffice mediainfo mediainfo-gui mp3diags net-tools nmap openssh-server pipx pv python3 python3-gi python3-pip qml6-module-* qpwgraph rar rawtherapee rpm rsync secure-delete smplayer sshfs sshpass subtitlecomposer synaptic tcl-expect tcl8.6 testdisk thunderbird tree ttf-mscorefonts-installer ufw unace unrar vlc wayland-utils whois xaos xfractint xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra zim

What if it throws an error and cannot find a package?

If perchance the bulk installation throws an error, complaining that a package(s) is unavailable similar to this:-

Error: Unable to locate package <unavailable-package>

where “<unavailable-package>” could be one or more unavailable packages, simply remove the package(s) from the command as try again.

What if I don’t want some of the packages on the list?

Then take them off the list before you install them!

Activate libdvdcss

This is needed to decrypt copy protected DVDs. You can skip this bit if you don’t have a DVD ROM and will never connect one. I generally set it up anyway, just in case I plug one in via USB:-

sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

That’s it!

You now have a fully loaded Debian 13 system!