I need help with debian but I am afraid of bricking myself

[{i}]

Of course does debian support secure boot?
Does it work with rufus debian? Or balenaetcher? I heard from spirallinux and a redditor (that “SpiralLinux is Debian”) and there website said issuse arise from rufus
Know of course I tried just looking at tutorial and watched it (not apply steps) (https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=LW7Z892bsG4)
But some questions I still thought.
For example what if USB is dislodged by accident (or purpose if that pessimistic), and while on guided installer (graphical) since I choose “erase whole disk” I am afraid that if my laptop gets bricked by it, like I get blank screen (I don’t care about the personal data, since backup is fine, just that can I boot the os again)
I can I make this less risk.
Should I instead partition disk but even then there is risk. How do you backup? And how do you make less risky?
I am switching from windows and leaving it
But would you advise to dual boot instead?

 

[dos2unix]

I'll let our Debian pros answer the Debian questions, but as for your hard drive.
@f33dm3bits @osprey @KGIII etc...

Erasing your hard won't brick your computer, reformatting your hard drive won't brick your computer.
The computer dying in the middle of a format won't brick your computer.

Worst case, reboot from the live USB distro, rebuild the partition table, and re-format.
Do the install over again... no harm, no foul. It's not always fun starting over, but it's better than a dead computer

 

[{i}]

Sorry if this dumb question but does it also applies to SSD as I am assuming “HDD” you are referring to when mentioning “hard”
Okay but I another question, If installation of usb stops midway, would putting back the live usb restart the installation of the os

 

[Brickwizard]

Welcome to the forums,
most of us turn secure boot off, but yes most Debian based distributions will accept secure boot,
if you currently have windows use Rufus, if you have any other distribution try Balina Etcher
SpiralLinux is just one of many distributions based on Debian [and not a very common one] more popular are Mint-LMDE Parrot Home, MX-Linux, Ubuntu, 22 and many more
If you have a bad burn of the ISO just download and burn again
if you pull the installation medium during installing, just switch off and start again
Make sure you have backed up all important stuff to an external drive
if you are deleting windows completely, let the installer do its own thing when it comes to partitioning and choose use complete drive

read the links in blue under this post

 

[Brickwizard]

Sorry if this dumb question but applies to SSD as I am assuming “HDD” y

no question is dumb if you do not know the answer, and yes when we refer to hard drive we use it as a generic term for old plate spinner hard drives, SATA SSD, MCMe cards,M2B SSD and M2Me NVMe drives

 

[{i}]

How recognise a bad iso burned?
Wouldn’t lose security, secure boot (however I also heard that secure boot is just chain of trust thing) BUT I think you can use your own keys for signing the boot-loader or something but that what I heard. Is there any way to do it.

 

[Brickwizard]

How recognise a bad iso burned?

check sha sum

Wouldn’t lose security, secure boot

debatable some say yes, but I don't have it on any of my machines, It doesn't matter what additional security you install to [Linux,Mac,Windows & etc] the weakest part of any system is between the seat back and keyboard

 

[{i}]

Wdym by “the weakest part of any system is between the seat back and keyboard”. No offence of course
I have another question when installing debian, does do WRITES specifically to the usb or only reads from usb and WRITES TO THE SELECTED DISK (wanted the distinction to be clear) (when doing the option of erasing entire disk)

 

[osprey]

Of course does debian support secure boot?
Does it work with rufus debian? Or balenaetcher? I heard from spirallinux and a redditor (that “SpiralLinux is Debian”) and there website said issuse arise from rufus
Know of course I tried just looking at tutorial and watched it (not apply steps) (https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=LW7Z892bsG4)
But some questions I still thought.
For example what if USB is dislodged by accident (or purpose if that pessimistic), and while on guided installer (graphical) since I choose “erase whole disk” I am afraid that if my laptop gets bricked by it, like I get blank screen (I don’t care about the personal data, since backup is fine, just that can I boot the os again)
I can I make this less risk.
Should I instead partition disk but even then there is risk. How do you backup? And how do you make less risky?
I am switching from windows and leaving it
But would you advise to dual boot instead?

If you interested in debian, fortunately debian provides the most authoritative info in it's documentation such as the following:
Quick installation: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/apa
Debian installer frequently asked questions: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/FAQ
Installation guides for current debian stable (trixie): https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual
Debian installer wiki page: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller
There is more info available but often takes a little research to find on the debian website.

 

[{i}]

Also what about let say I choosen the erase disk option would it automatically destroy windows and change it to boot load the debian since windows is gone, replaced, vamoosh, by debian, like no conflict of boot loading (increase the chance by disabling secure boot?)

 

[deb_user]

I recommend Ventoy instead of balenaetcher, rufus or any of the other obsolete methods. Install Ventoy to the USB drive, and then just do a normal copy of as many .iso files as you like, or the drive can hold, and you can boot the one you choose from a menu at boot time.

You will not brick your computer. If something goes wrong, just reboot from the USB drive and start over. If you tell the installer to use the entire drive, then it will erase Windows entirely. It writes only to the drive(s) you specify. You can use as many drives as the computer can hold if you want, or however you want to do it. For new users, the easiest and safest way to go is to just accept the defaults, use the entire drive, put everything into one partition, and let the installer do its thing.

 

[gvisoc]

Wouldn’t lose security, secure boot (however I also heard that secure boot is just chain of trust thing) BUT I think you can use your own keys for signing the boot-loader or something but that what I heard. Is there any way to do it

You're jumping ahead of yourself.

1. You would lose security covering the rare event of a malware trying to install itself as a kernel module, or leaving your laptop unattended and unblocked and with the ability of boot from a USB or without a supervisor password in the UEFI to enable that. Or leaving your house unlocked and having your desktop computer with the same --either boot from USB enabled or an unprotected UEFI for a cheeky b@$t@rd to tinker with your bootloader.

2. Yes there are ways to create your keys and sign modules and kernels

The thing is: Secure Boot only covers a small set of scenarios as it protects the bootloader. You can protect your bootloader in some other ways. And signing modules is possible, but not so frequently needed. Unless you install modules trough packages that are not signed by Debian, or unless you compile your own kernel or modules, you won't need to sign anything at all.

Usual examples and, being honest, the only two I ever needed, are Virtual Box' modules and nonfree NVIDIA ones. If you don't have an NVIDIA graphics card and you don't plan to use Virtual Box (either because you would use KVM / QUEMU, Gnome Boxes, or because you don't need virtual machines at all), most likely you won't have to sign anything by hand.

And, if you do, the process is documented in the Debian documentation: https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot

 

[gvisoc]

Also what about let say I choosen the erase disk option would it automatically destroy windows and change it to boot load the debian since windows is gone, replaced, vamoosh, by debian, like no conflict of boot loading (increase the chance by disabling secure boot?)

Yes.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I'll let our Debian pros answer the Debian questions, but as for your hard drive.
@f33dm3bits @osprey @KGIII etc...

Not sure If I"m a Debian Pro but thanks for the compliment.

Of course does debian support secure boot?

Debian supports secure boot but for some systems you may need to do some manual steps to get it to work.

SecureBoot - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

Should I instead partition disk but even then there is risk. How do you backup? And how do you make less risky?
I am switching from windows and leaving it
But would you advise to dual boot instead?

As @dos2unix mentioned installing Linux on a disk isn't going to brick your system. If you dual-boot it will give you some time to get used to Linux. If you run into something and don't have the time to figure it out, you can then always boot into Windows. The other side is if you don't dual-boot you'll force yourself to try and understand what the problem is and learn from it and you will get to know Linux faster. Lastly if you do dual-boot be sure to install Windows and Linux on a separate disk because it will cause trouble.

 

[kc1di]

Hello @{i}
Welcome to the Linux.org forum, enjoy!
Sorry late to this one. I guess my question is will you be dual booting with Windows or are you wanting to just install Debian on that machine? If you just want Debian Use Ventoy or Etcher to burn the .iso file they both work pretty well. As far as secure boot goes it's a misnomer it does not afford much in the way of security. But should work on most installs. Only time I've run into is that some wifi /bluetooth cards don't play well with secureboot enabled. Debian is a fine choice and you should have no problems with it. There is a ton of online help. But as a very new user you may want to try Mint or mint LMDE7 first. until you get used to linux. In any event take your time and enjoy the learning journey!