So: the problem was, as suggested by others above, that the device driver in kernel 4.9.0 was not able to handle the updated hardware of Intel's B360M chipset. The e1000e driver for Intel has been around, in name at least, for the eight year life of my existing desktop machines, but it has been significantly changed, as is apparent from its increased size. Research on the web suggests that kernel 4.15 or so is necessary for the latest Intel ethernet hardware.
I appreciate the helpful comments and advice from members of this forum. Thanks.
]]>Note: devuan debootstrap is included in all the live isos.
]]>So: I am running the 4.9.0-12 kernel, and my computers have a file
/lib/modules/4.9.0-12-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/e1000e/e1000e.ko
The driver is definitely is there. My problem is that running netinst.iso on a new machine with the intel chipset does not find the ethernet card. I conclude the driver is not in netinst.iso and so my best course of action is to get debootstrap into the machine currently running Ubuntu and use the untar procedure described in instructions. That is probably preferable to using apt to install it, mixing it up with Ubuntu sources.
I'll report progress. It is probably useful to know that the Debian wiki for debootstrap describes the correct procedure for Devuan. I have done a quick check of a test installation of debootstrap on a Devuan virtual machine and it definitely has some Devuan specific features.
]]>If I boot devuan_ascii_2.1_amd64_netinstall.iso I get an ethernet connection on the Thinkpad, and lsmod shows that e1000e is loaded. This installer iso has 4.9.0-11.
]]>Apropos the e1000e ethernet driver module, I assume that is not included in the netinst.iso download. I do not know enough about the vast varieties of hardware available to know how common the B360M-C motherboard is among Linux users.
]]>Also Devuan recommends using the codename (jessie, ascii, beowulf, ceres) rather than the suite (oldstable, stable, testing, unstable) in /etc/apt/sources.list entries. Please go to Devuan Release Information for more details.
https://pkginfo.devuan.org/ is an excellent resource to discover what is available in the Devuan repos. Also https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/bannedpackages.txt for what will break Devuan.
]]>In one of my existing machines currently running Devuan, the e1000e module is present in /lib/modules so it would presumably be available after kernel installation. The problem is then to get the driver into the machine in which Devuan is to be installed, and it now seems that it would be a good idea to follow the advice I was given in my previous thread and use debootstrap to install Devuan in the new machine currently running Ubuntu. It seems an even better idea given that the machine has two hard drives (in preparation for using mdadm to set up RAID1). Devuan can presumably be installed on /dev/hdb, using debootstrap, without messing up the existing Ubuntu installation on /dev/sda; once Devuan is working, Ubuntu can be removed, and RAID1 set up.
It sounds like a fun project; precisely why I got into working with Linux.
]]>Ethernet and video are included in the Intel B360M-C motherboard used by Asus in this machine. Running Ubuntu I can use F2 to get a tty and run regular unix commands; lsmod tells me that a module called e1000e is loaded, which turns out to be a driver for Intel ethernet hardware. e1000e is also included on the list of drivers presented by the Devuan install process, but selecting it does not make a "continue" button available.
I assume that if the driver is listed by the install process it is available in the iso file used to set up a basic system. Maybe that is a wrong assumption and I have to download and install the driver, but it appears that there is a hardware detection problem with the installer. I would appreciate any assistance that anyone could give me for this problem.
I would also welcome any comment about whether this topic belongs under "hardware" rather than "installation".
]]>