There's an extra closing parenthesis on line 957 of the refractainstaller-yad. It can be fatal.

Solution: If you use the graphical installer, don't select a swap partition. Let the installer make a swapfile instead. Otherwise, use the cli installer. Run sudo refractainstaller in a terminal.

I'm not going to make new isos immediately. I don't want to go through replacing the torrent again so soon.

I did rebuild the refractainstaller-gui package. 9.6.4 is coming down the line and will work with refractainstaller-base_9.6.3.

Newer chimaera live isos (4.0.2) are uploaded. I'm sure I tested the installer this time and it works.
(note: torrent and magent link haven't been updated yet at this time Sep 10, 16:36 UTC.)

They're also here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/tools/
(for anyone who can't wait or those who are not using devuan)

If someone wants to change it in place, go to line 2043 in /usr/bin/refractainstaller-yad or line  1893 in /usr/bin/refractainstaller and change this

 # Remove diversion of anacron
if [ -e /usr/sbin/anacron.orig.anacron ] ; then
         rm -f /usr/sbin/anacron
         dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/sbin/anacron
fi

to this

 # Remove diversion of anacron
if [ -e /target/usr/sbin/anacron.orig.anacron ] ; then
         rm -f /target/usr/sbin/anacron
         chroot /target dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/sbin/anacron
fi

Really sorry about that. I think I need a vacation.

I haven't tested the new installer yet, should I mark the topic SOLVED or wait for whenever I test it?

EDIT: I'll just mark it as SOLVED since we have workaround that I know work anyhow.

fsmithred wrote:

New live isos with new repo key and new refractainstaller with anacron fix are uploaded.

Thanks! But FYI you have one more expired key to renew. ;-D

gpg: assuming signed data in 'SHA256SUMS.txt'
gpg: Signature made Wed Sep  7 18:11:12 2022 CEST
gpg:                using RSA key 67F5013216271E85C251E480A73823D3094C5620
gpg: Good signature from "fsmithred (aka fsr) <fsmithred@gmail.com>" [expired]
gpg: Note: This key has expired!

I fixed that a long time ago. You need to run

gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com  --refresh-keys

gpg --list-keys 094c5620
pub   rsa4096 2017-10-07 [SC] [expires: 2025-05-02]
      67F5013216271E85C251E480A73823D3094C5620
uid           [ultimate] fsmithred (aka fsr) <fsmithred@gmail.com>
sub   rsa4096 2017-10-07 [E] [expires: 2025-05-02]

New live isos with new repo key and new refractainstaller with anacron fix are uploaded.

Thanks! But FYI you have one more expired key to renew. ;-D

gpg: assuming signed data in 'SHA256SUMS.txt'
gpg: Signature made Wed Sep  7 18:11:12 2022 CEST
gpg:                using RSA key 67F5013216271E85C251E480A73823D3094C5620
gpg: Good signature from "fsmithred (aka fsr) <fsmithred@gmail.com>" [expired]
gpg: Note: This key has expired!

To use the current isos, wget the new keyring in the live session, and install it with dpkg or gdebi before running the installer.

You can feed debconf-set-selections with a here string (or here document if you're not using bash) containing the relevant information.

This example is for GRUB:

debconf-set-selections <<<"grub-efi-amd64 grub2/force_efi_extra_removable boolean true"

Use debconf-get-selections to find the correct syntax for each entry and use dpkg-reconfigure to bring up the interactive configuration dialogue for each package that shows all the options.

And off-topic but:

Devuan uses an initramfs rather than an initrd and so uses chroot instead of pivot_root.

refractainstaller-base
https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/poo … .2_all.deb

refractainstaller-gui
https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/poo … .2_all.deb

This one will correctly remove the diversion of anacron and rename it so it runs. It also contains a postinst script, so that when you upgrade the installer to this version, it will check your system for the leftover cruft from the diversion and correct it. It does not restart anacron, so logs won't rotate until after a reboot or a manual restart of anacron.

your IV and V are in wrong order

Many thanks - fixed.

Good lord, I've skipped over so much detail that this is merely a large pamphlet rather than a multi-volume book. Which has only taken me several hours to research & write. But I take your point.

Please continue

EDIT: Actually, you skipped over the pre-pivot stage, which is the initial bootup (adding .1 to your III) using the initrd filesystem.

The kernel begins by running its /init which is a shell script, and that script will eventually pivot the root to the "real" filesystem and exec /sbin/init. The initrd scripting is held in /usr/share/initramfs-tools which is a configuration place for building an initrd, since the actual, running initrd is the cpio package loaded from /boot into RAM by the kernel (using the initrd= parameter).

afaik most linux systems have that 2-stage boot, to allow the bootup to be programmed generically even though every actual bootup is a specific host. It's quite possible to set up the bootup for the specific host without using an initrd stage but then typically it needs a specific kernel with the right modules compiled in.