The device I designed at work can be formatted and reinstalled without interrupting its work.

It’s bloat if you don’t stop running

Good news is it's much harder to accidentally wipe/fragment all your files than it is to break your system

If anything is lost right now, you might be able to get it back just by booting from a live USB to explore your file system

ok.

Yep, definitely secure boot. For now, you may be able to disable secure boot on your workstation or boot off of the install media and run the commands to enroll the mok key that you were given in another thread.

I'm not a programmer, I'm a guitarist, and yet I still manage to use Arch (btw)! Linux isn't just for programmers, it's for people who don't hate learning things, but do hate someone else controlling their machines.

Yes, it was only after grub that the drivers were loaded and the kernel presumably panicked or at least nothing was displayed. Not sure if that is what you mean by bricked the entire workstation. If something broke before the kernel is loaded I doubt it was because of the drivers. If you want to keep your current Debian installation alive you can try to chroot into it from a live usb. Sorry if this is completely obvious to you but I really don't know what to expect based on your description.

Having looked at your other comments and the post you linked I too am intimidated. It looks as though you have access to your boot menu and bios though. I don't know what the upsides of secure boot are but I never turned it on on my current desktop PC. Maybe disabling it could help?

and to my surprise everything seems good! (knock on wood)

After a few aborted attempts to switch to Linux, over the years, that has been exactly the vibe of my latest journey.

"So this all just works now?" has been my repeated surprised thought.

Standard disclaimer: I don't have any hardware by Nvidia. Not by choice, I was just feeling broke when Nvidia got hot.

It literally is. Please get out from under your rock.

1993 called and wants the inferior FOSS software you last tried back. Haha.

I find that Linux apps for basic stuff are now well ahead of their Windows counterparts.

It's getting hard to find quality free software that is Windows native, and not just a recompile of a Mac or Linux tool.

I'm happy to pay for software too, but the paid stuff has all been shit, for awhile, in my weird experiences. (Weird, in that I'm not doing music or video editing or non-developer power user stuff. I've heard mileage may vary with those.)

I once redid the whole bootloader remotely.

I had a remote server that wasn't luks encrypted because I didn't do that some 3 years ago when setting it up.

So naturally I did the sane thing and kexec a live environment with ssh and a wireguard client, did an in-place encryption of the software raid disks, set up remote unlocking with VPN and rebooted.

And I still can't believe that it actually reconnected after that.

Linux user seeing a 50% chance to uninstall their bootloader:

Let's go gambling!

Ok, thank you for the feedback still. You were able to install a different OS and boot into it normally?

No clue how to fix it. I had a similar issue and it fixed itself when I switched to endeavouros with i3.

Hi, how do I check for that ? how do I recognize grub ?

Here is a crosspost of my thread from the Debian forums :
https://programming.dev/post/39832602

Thanks a bunch for stopping by...

I just cross-posted my cry for help over there. Thanks again for the redirection. https://programming.dev/post/39832602

Can't see the images in the forum, but is the kernel actually starting? (Does it get past grub? Does it get to grub?)

From your forum post it sounds like you're seeing a secure boot issue, which may require changing some bios settings. (Installing the non free driver definitely breaks secure boot.)

Thank you that's already a lead !

I did follow the instructions to the letter so not sure what I should have done differently

I am going to ask on the community you linked. Thanks again

you done fucked up the secure boot settings I think. I am in no way qualified to help you.

I don't even understand how you can install a different OS. Work off a live USB if you even can.

As far as I understand this is the bit you fucked up. btw, the images in the debian forum post just show "filename1.jpg" as text and don't display. post on !/c/linux4noobs@programming.dev

Step 2: Enroll MOK key for Secure Boot

Debian updates its kernel (minor versions) regularly for security updates and fixes. Without re-building kernel modules every time, DKMS is used, which however needs be signed for secure boot using a machine owner key (MOK).

1. First, run the command below to check if Debian was installed with UEFI boot by running the command below in terminal:

ls /sys/firmware/efi

The command tells to list the /sys/firmware/efi directory content. If it says “No such file or directory”, then you have Debian installed as legacy boot.

2. Next, run command to check if secure boot enabled:

sudo mokutil --sb-state

If both UEFI and secure boot enabled (as the screenshot below shows you), then you need to run commands below one by one to create and enroll MOK key.

3. First, run the command below to manually generate a mok key.

sudo dkms generate_mok

Run sudo apt install dkms if the dkms command not found, and set a password for the key.

4. Next, run command to import the key:

sudo mokutil --import /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub

5. Finally, reboot your computer. At next boot, it should pop-up a screen (see the screenshot below), asking to perform MOK menagement.

There, just choose to Enroll MOK -> continue -> confirm -> enter password (you set when creating the key) -> reboot.

After enabled non-free repository and enrolled MOK key, you may then run the commands below to install NVIDIA driver.

First, install the kernel headers for DKMS:

sudo apt install linux-headers-$(dpkg --print-architecture)

Thanks a bunch for the advice but I can't start my system. That's regardless of the distro I try and install (I already overwrote Trixie with Bazzite... and now with Nobara). I followed this tutorial :https://fostips.com/install-nvidia-driver-in-debian-13/?amp=1

I explain the situation over here in more detail if by any chance this rings a bell with you :

https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=164124

Cheers, appreciate the advice

According to the windows logo face guy, I suppose

I ran dpkg --get-selections to get all my installed packages and here's the installed Nvidia stuff. Try to install what's missing.

If you can't even get to command line, try to backup your data to an external source by using a live USB, and replace your debian with Pika OS, which has all the Nvidia stuff out the gate.

nvidia-alternative                              
nvidia-driver                                   
nvidia-driver-bin                               
nvidia-driver-libs:amd64                        
nvidia-driver-libs:i386                         
nvidia-egl-common                               
nvidia-egl-icd:amd64                            
nvidia-egl-icd:i386                             
nvidia-installer-cleanup                        
nvidia-kernel-common                            
nvidia-kernel-dkms                              
nvidia-kernel-support                           
nvidia-legacy-check                             
nvidia-modprobe                                 
nvidia-persistenced                             
nvidia-settings                                 
nvidia-smi                                      
nvidia-support                                  
nvidia-suspend-common                           
nvidia-vdpau-driver:amd64                       
nvidia-vulkan-common                            
nvidia-vulkan-icd:amd64                         
nvidia-vulkan-icd:i386                          

EDIT : from apt list --installed

libnvidia-allocator1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-allocator1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-cfg1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-egl-gbm1/stable,now 1.1.2.1-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-egl-gbm1/stable,now 1.1.2.1-1 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-egl-wayland1/stable,stable,now 1:1.1.18-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-egl-wayland1/stable,stable,now 1:1.1.18-1 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-eglcore/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-eglcore/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-encode1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-encode1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-glcore/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-glcore/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-glvkspirv/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-glvkspirv/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-gpucomp/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-gpucomp/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-ml1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-pkcs11-openssl3/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler1/stable,now 550.163.01-2 i386 [installed,automatic]
libnvidia-rtcore/stable,now 550.163.01-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]

Your system will break

So it is actually my system not Microsoft’s?