Debian 13 on HP 665 G11 laptop

Today I installed Debian 13 on a new HP 665 G11 laptop that came with Windows 11 pre-installed in 1TB SSD. It's not well tested yet but superficially it seems fine.

I created only local Windows 11 accounts on the laptop.

I used Windows Disk Manager to shrink the Windows C drive to make space, reducing it to 250GB.

I disabled BitLocker Device Encryption, which was enabled by default, though I don't think it had encrypted the device yet: I could not export recovery keys. After dire warnings that it would take a long time to decrypt the disk, it was complete in under a minute but, again, I suspect the disks weren't encrypted, pending login to a Windows account.

I downloaded the Debian 13 network install image and copied it to USB using `sudo cp /dev/sda` on another system running Linux.

Getting to the BIOS/Boot menus is a nuisance. Power on and keep pressing Esc or F10 quickly/repeatedly. I don't know when it checks but sometimes it notices and brings up the BIOS/Boot menu. Otherwise it starts Windows 11 again and I had to go round and try again: too many times.

I disabled secure boot. I might try re-enabling it later. I expect the laptop has the new Microsoft keys but haven't confirmed and don't want trouble when the old key expires. I don't need the secure boot security, given the intended use of the laptop.

Then I booted from USB and installed Debian. It took about half an hour, mostly due to my slow Internet connection, making it slow to download all the software. I installed basic system with XFCE desktop.

Now it boots to Debian by default but boot to Windows 11 works.

Wireless network works fine. I haven't explored all the other hardware, bluetooth, power management, etc. but I am optimistic that any problems can be resolved before too long.

It was quick and easy. It took less time to install Debian than for Windows to download all its updates and I don't think it is done yet: whenever I was running Windows 11 my network was overloaded despite me setting download limits on Windows Update for 0.5Mbps background an 1Mbps foreground.