So in my experience getting #debian onto my Macbook 2015 ended up without any encryption on the local disk. Performance with LVM was abyssmal. Installing with ZFS on root left me with an unusable system. Something about the way debbootstrap installed during the instructions left me with a version of Linux that could not access the Apple USB devices. It would boot and the kernel would throw a bunch of USB device errors, and it wouldn't recogize the built-in keyboard, so I couldn't even login.
A standard Debian install works fine.
So #debian13 is running just fine. But this is a slow machine. I discovered a tool called eatmydata. It basically shims calls to fsync() system calls and does a no-op instead. (😱) What could possibly go wrong?
But running sudo eatmydata apt install blah blah blah runs way faster than the equivalent apt command.
It has breathed new life into this laptop.
Paco Hope
npub1we…8epgj
2026-10-11 21:21:41 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1wemf3zlwy2dra8tfeq0my8fl3hk3k35pr7vppsua2qj58yf8v0vq88epgjSeen on
wss://relay.ditto.pubPublished at
2026-10-11 21:21:41 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "7c4111f86088b7566e6be66d04d8d8985f3449cb4a506bae5875de0117723b8c",
"pubkey": "7676988bee229a3e9d69c81fb21d3f8ded1b46811f9810c39d502543912763d8",
"created_at": 1791753701,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"debian"
],
[
"t",
"debian13"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://infosec.exchange/users/paco/statuses/117424370553378399",
"activitypub"
],
[
"client",
"Mostr",
"31990:6be38f8c63df7dbf84db7ec4a6e6fbbd8d19dca3b980efad18585c46f04b26f9:mostr",
"wss://relay.ditto.pub"
]
],
"content": "So in my experience getting #debian onto my Macbook 2015 ended up without any encryption on the local disk. Performance with LVM was abyssmal. Installing with ZFS on root left me with an unusable system. Something about the way debbootstrap installed during the instructions left me with a version of Linux that could not access the Apple USB devices. It would boot and the kernel would throw a bunch of USB device errors, and it wouldn't recogize the built-in keyboard, so I couldn't even login.\n\nA standard Debian install works fine.\n\nSo #debian13 is running just fine. But this is a slow machine. I discovered a tool called eatmydata. It basically shims calls to fsync() system calls and does a no-op instead. (😱) What could possibly go wrong?\n\nBut running sudo eatmydata apt install blah blah blah runs way faster than the equivalent apt command.\n\nIt has breathed new life into this laptop.",
"sig": "da04f51dd2f364ecfb2dd78a21b95e8babe024715787c8de1272d033a770ef5dbcef5a4628162995624ae0fbdf1bd683010faf96c2025948e399c62f4ffb8e60"
}