Just installed Debian 12 on a Dell Inspiron 14 Plus. I know there are those out there who are curious about different machines, and especially the Dell machines that come prepackaged with Windows 11 and all the bloat you can shake a stick at.

Reporting in that it works great, it’s lightning fast, it required zero driver installation. It just works, right out of the box.

Now I’ve messed with a few different Linux packages before, but I’ve never had it on a main machine. I’ve done this because I’m highly dissatisfied with Microsoft burying generative AI directly into the operating system so that you’re forced to see it, if not interact with it. And who knows what it’s doing with your data.

Not going to be me, but now I’ve got to maybe find a replacement for Photoshop, and figure out how to get Steam on here, and a few of my other work programs. But all-in-all I’m extremely surprised that all I had to do was install it and I was good to go.

I suppose I’ll close this out with a question to start some discussion: What are your go-to apps to install right out of the box on a fresh Debian setup?