Debian

So, first up some handy links:

After a couple of installs and talking to a friend it turns out that Debian is interesting with how it handles root and sudo during installation. If you do not set a root password then Debian will assume you don't want a root user and disable the account but it will then install sudo. If however you choose to set a root user password then it assumes you will use this account and hence does not install sudo. Debian goes for the one or other approach, and assume you do not want both.

Maybe this was just me picking the wrong options but I had to do a couple of things to get myself going! Firstly I had to switch to the root user, I would have used sudo but that was not installed! Then I modified the file /etc/apt/sources.list adding the following line:
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main contrib
Then I could use apt and apt-get to install stuff.

It does appear that Debian does not install sudo by default. The other thing you might need to do after installing is modify /etc/apt/sources.list so that the CD-ROM lines are commented out. If you follow this with an apt update and apt upgrade then all should be well.

You will probably need to install sudo, here are my recommended steps:

  • su - - this will ask you for the root password
  • apt install sudo - does the install
  • usermod -a -G sudo usrname - where usrname is your user name, this adds your account to the sudo group
  • I did a reboot at this point but logging out and back in again should work, that is a full logout if you have a user interface running

I like the fact that Debian defaults to using a sudo group, this is much better than granting individual users access via the sudoers file.

Virtual Box Guest Additions

So the first job is to insert the CD, the autorun thing will not work, so cancel that. Then execute the following:
sudo su -
apt install gcc make linux-headers-amd64
sh /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Which should sort it after a reboot, all being well.

When a new version of VirtualBox has been installed on the host you will need to update the Guest Additions. Simply insert the CD image and then execute the second command above. After a reboot everything should be working fine.

Checking Version

So the simple way with Debian to check which version you have is to do as follows:
cat /etc/debian_version
However if you want a bit more information and not just this then try this:
lsb_release -d
The "-a" switch gives a little more information. If this command does not work then to install it simply do this:
sudo apt install lsb-release
I am not quite sure which the package uses a hyphen and the command an underscore but well that's the way it is.