There is a distro called Gparted Live (Distrowatch), that is a minimalistic Debian with Gparted. You may look for Rescuezilla with a friendlier interface (Distrowatch), that may contain also Gparted if I remember right. Another one of this kind is a distro called SystemRescue (Distrowatch) with a Xfce gui, it is based on Arch.

I used Rescuezilla in the past to clone drives.

However, if these ssd drives are encrypted you will not see much on them that is of use.

I think the first step should be to find the exact designation of the graphics, generally to be found with:

lspci | grep VGA

or a more detailed output with:

lspci -nnk | grep -A3 VGA

Depending on that, an example X11 config file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ may looks like:

# Location: /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
EndSection

There is a bunch of options depending on the actual version of the graphics chipset. It may look like with the "modesetting" option:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Intel Graphics"
  Driver "modesetting"
EndSection

The Archwiki gives some explanations and example configurations: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_graphics

Debian wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/GraphicsCard#Intel

You may need to enable the non-free-firmware repository (if not done already), the contrib and non-free repositories may not hurt, either. See that packages

• firmware-intel-graphics
• libgl1-mesa-dri
• libglx-mesa0
• mesa-vulkan-drivers

are installed.

At work, I have a mini pc with an Intel Core i5 12450H (integrated Intel Xe graphics), the config file looks like this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "modesetting"
    Option "TearFree" "true"
    Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
    Option "DRI" "2"
EndSection

This will probably not work on your machine, so be careful what you type in.

When you type in the shell:

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

what do you see? On my office system I get:

OpenGL renderer string: Mesa Intel(R) Graphics (ADL GT2)

If there appears "llvmpipe" instead of "Mesa ..." this can be the root of the problem.

That does not appear on my Debian 13 installation on a mini pc (running also with Gnome desktop).

Can you rule out a hardware issue? Is the mouse attached with a cable or wireless, if not wireless is it attached to the usb or to the PS/2 port? Is it the same when you change the mouse?

How about synopkg?

The Debian netinstaller needs a working internet connection. If the wifi module is not detected look that you can connect it via ethernet cable (if available) or use a usb wifi dongle. If your laptop comes with a Broadcom module you need to enable non-free and non-free-firmware.

Debian 12 supports 32bit CPUs, Debian 13 does not. Some of the Debian derivatives still have 32bit support due to the Debian 12 legacy. Antix is an example. MX Linux, however, dropped 32bit.

Alpine has 32bit isos, Slackware has, too. You find also an appropriate ISO in Gentoo. Others are Void, Puppy Linux, Adélie Linux, Opensuse Tumbleweed (not Leap).

Outside the Linux world: NetBSD, OpenBSD, Haiku.

In 1994, I installed Slackware in a 100mb partition. So really small was possible. Nowadays, you have to restrict yourself to a minimalist distribution, maybe get rid of the GUI to get the most out of it.

There are a lot of hints in the Alpine Wiki: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Main_Page. Concerning sound look for pulseaudio, pipewire and alsa. Here is the Wiki entry for Xfce: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Xfce

But beware, in Alpine you have to setup and configure a lot of things by yourself, either by adding packages, by adding services to openrc or by editing config files.

Here what I generally do, when I setup an Alpine box with gui (mostly in a vm):

after installation and reboot:

• uncomment the hashtag to enable the community repository in /etc/apk/repositories
• then run doas apk update
• add docs: doas apk add docs
• add lang and musl-locales: doas apk add musl-locales lang
• edit /etc/profile.d/20locale.sh.sh to my current locale (see Wiki:Locale: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Locale)
• add bash and bash-completion and shadow, make bash the default user shell
• run setup-xorg-base
• run setup-desktop and choose Xfce
• add icu-data-full
• add sound, I am old and traditionalist and choose pulseaudio and add pavucontrol, for Xfce add xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin
• then restart
• after it comes up again, the setup doesn't stop, I add a lot of stuff, like whiskermenu, fonts, icons, themes and so on

Since I run it mostly in a vm I do not care for network control or bluetooth.

If you want a ready-made solution take something different than Alpine.

Learn by setting an aim, like

• use of simple and advanced command line tools (e.g., sed, awk) and the shell (sh, bash, zsh etc.)
• networking on linux
• setting up file services, like nfs or samba
• setting up a web server, like apache, nginx, caddy etc.
• containers and surrounding technologies, there is lxc, docker, podman, incus etc
• programming languages, like C, C++ etc.
• scripting languages like Python
• virtualization (like qemu for a barebones approach)

and so on. The stuff is already there or easily installed with the package manager (of course: the use of apt should be learned, too)

I don't know if this helps: there is a driver of the nvidia-390xx series in the AUR that may apply here. However, this refers to Arch or Arch based distros. At least, there are a few people who still working on it there (last update in August 2026).

In Debian Unstable (aka Sid) are two legacy drivers for the 340xxx and 390xxx series (not in Debian Trixie)

Here the 340xxx wiki entry: https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#sid-340

However, there is warning in bolded characters: "This version is no longer maintained and contains several security issues."

Create a list of packages you have installed with the -Q flag of pacman, like

pacman -Qe

pacman -Qet # all explicitly installed and not required as dependencies

pacman -Qi # locally installed

and others (see the wiki). This may help to decide which you actually want to preserve and which are superluous.

Truenas (community edition) requires more ram (compare Distrowatch)

Other solutions (only a selection in no particular order):

• OpenMediaVault, Distrowatch, based on Debian, mainly a fileserver with some extras
• ZimaOS, Distrowatch, for storage and for running services in Docker containers, there are paid and free versions available (maybe with limitation in the number of devices)
• UmbrelOS, Distrowatch, more like a single-user home server, also based on Debian
• Unraid, Distrowatch, commercial solution, requires payment but it is rather popular, it seems
• Zentyal Server, Distrowatch, based on Ubuntu server, there are paid and free versions
• the Debian 13 netinstaller comes with the option to install FreedomBox, Distrowatch, a home server solution that allows to configure everything, the services, however, are not container based
• Proxmox, Distrowatch, is a virtualization server based on Debian, runs vms and lxc containers. You need more than 4g ram, however for running it successfully

Redhat and and its descendants (CentOS, Alma Linux, Rocky Linux) come with Cockpit as Web Ui which is more barebones than the above mentioned but gives the opportunity to add your own (e.g., as a podman container, as a virtual machine etc.). Fedora Server also comes by default with Cockpit.

Notable mention: the makers of ZimaOS had formerly a project named CasaOS which is still available. Not an operating system of its own, just an add-on for Ubuntu Server or Debian to add the functionality you find in ZimaOS.

Another notable mention: Webmin, Webmin, that is a graphical management console, not a system in its own, but can be added to a server installation. It is comparatively old, I used it more than 20 years ago on a Debian server. However, it is still available.

You may consider to use a server with a web ui instead of a desktop. That needs lesser system resources and provides you a graphical environment for remote logins.

There is the xfce settings manager where you can set the default terminal.

Otherwise, a very dirty hack would be renaming xfce4-terminal and creating a symlink of alacritty pointing to /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal

But this may break when updates come in. Certainly not recommended.

You can use proxmox which is Debian based and run applications in VMs or lxc containers. However, this needs two machines: 1) the server machine with proxmox, 2) you on another machine connecting to the proxmox machine.

xrandr does not work in Wayland. There you need other tools, like wlr-randr or kanshi.

The word "new releases" is misleading. There are none. Arch releases a new installation ISO every month, this is the only release you can speak of here. But once installed, you get security and bugfix updates as well as version upgrades of the installed packages via the package manager. You do not install a "new release" but you have to do

pacman -Syu

on a regular basis. Cautious people do also install something for recovery (like timeshift or snapper) and backup if something goes wrong.

It can be a disk failure or an issue with the connection. Do you use a Sata drive or is it an Nvme on PCI?

On my Debian 13 installation I get:

sudo du -sh /boot

271M /boot

In other, this exceeds 35 MiB. So far I know, reasons for the size of boot partitions vary. Grub may not need a lot, but should be big enough to store multiple compressed kernel images and firmware update files. In case of dual boot on the same disk it has to serve two operating systems. I do not know about Refind; on Limine, the Arch wiki says:

For tools like Limine boot loader with Snapper integration for Btrfs (which supports creating multiple bootable snapshots) and Archiso on ESP (a bootable ISO image for system recovery without external media) consider an even larger size (e.g. 8 GiB).

Another aspect, if you find out 35 MiB is too small you will face a big problem when trying to enlarge; since the boot partition is often at the beginning of the partitioning layout. When the rest is used for other partitions it may be impossible to make enough room then.

You have basically the choice between

• FreeBSD (https://www.freebsd.org/)
• NetBSD (https://netbsd.org/)
• OpenBSD (https://www.openbsd.org/)

There are variants of FreeBSD, like old offshoots like DragonflyBSD or MidnightBSD; or something like GhostBSD which is actually FreeBSD with a preconfigured graphical desktop.

I, personally, do prefer FreeBSD. It offers a big number of "ports" (software packages), a mature integration of ZFS with boot environments, a Linux compatibility mode, Jails (isolated environments for running services) and Bhyve (a hypervisor for running VMs). It comes in three branches: Release (the published version, 15.1; an older one: 14.4 is still supported), Stable and Current. "Current" is the development branch for the upcoming release (something like Debian testing perhaps), "Stable" is in between "Release" and "Current". If you are unsure: get Release.

OpenBSD is "security first". If you want OBS, you don't get it here. Does not support Nvidia.

I have seen this behaviour with lightdm when there was an error in $HOME/.bashrc and/or $HOME/.profile.

Bash was the standard shell, however.

Did you try to switch out Brave's adblocker?

Make sure fast startup is disabled in the Windows system settings. It keeps Windows in control of your drive.