I've tried to show the keyboard and screen dimming, as mentioned in a post about laptops...

also, not very clearly the well used/abused headphone socket which probably is reducing the apparent right side speaker and headphone volume level. I haven't tested BT, but I expect a usb external sound card to work.

There may be a better way to show pics, I'm not familiar enough with the process to remember and repeat a best practice.
I thought a link to the 'ibb.co' laptop-update picture repository may have been better, but I dislike links that take me away from the forum... what's better? I'd prefer not to rewrite a webpage.

13 images, Laptop-update, replaced battery and reseated heatsinks.
https://ibb.co/album/Jv2xLs

  Thank you

Still a work in progress.

I have a few hacks I want to try, like removing pulseaudio, but networkmanager was not on my list.

I liked wicd with the older versions of Devuan because it seem simple and effective,

but some of the older packages are harder to install which creates more problems.

btw, when I said I upgraded from ascii through to Daedalus,

I had frozen (pinned) the kernel version and eventually it (the installation) broke because of the older libc version limitations.

I am currently working through a Lynis report to find things to patch (install, upgrade or obfuscate).

All the best.

Trinity has a GUI applet for Network Manager -trinity-tdenetworkmanager.
It “hangs” in the tray and shows the signal level. It’s easier to configure, unless of course there are any objections to Network Manager itself.

A recent bpo kernel

glenn@trinity:~$ uname -a
Linux trinity 6.6.13+bpo-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.6.13-1~bpo12+1 (2024-02-15) x86_64 GNU/Linux
glenn@trinity:~$

The keyboard and display brightness Fn keys work.

I had wicd working for a bit, but then it was removed.

I setup wifi on the command-line

wpa_passphrase {ssid} {password} > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

The wifi is working, but drops out a lot!

I finally got the keys to work with the config editor, once I figured out how to add US and AUS, I got rid of the Brittish keys and now # and | are where I'm used to using them.

@aluma Thanks for the tips. Got me out of the hole I was in. :-)

I looked into most of the other tips as well, and tried a few.

Once I partitioned with dos-mbr, I could boot and then after installing ascii, then upgrading to beowulf, and then chimeara, and then to daedalus...
a real pain,

but found that it was just one of those 6.1 kernels that was causing most of my problems, then

I had a runnaway kernel... dumping heaps of text to the screen that I could only switch the laptop off (power button still worked)...

then did a clean install of Daedalus/xfce4 and converted to trinity as instructed in a post here from @aluma.

That did the trick although the wifi was extremely faulty, I eventually made a list and installed most of the packages piece-by-piece, in small groups.

I have amarok installed and is playing music, confirming the sound system is running. (Firmware_intel_sound package in this case)

I'm really happy with this setup, I'm loving it.

Next I'll have a go at tethering the iPhone.

I have some pics of when I changed the battery a few weeks ago (this WIP has taken nearly a month) and I'll share those with you soon.

Thanks for all the help, it was invaluable.

Thank you very much for your time and considerations.

Kind regards, Glenn

The partition table was MBR before I changed it to GPT, that way the MBR bootable flag was set, and GPT protected it from being written over.

And therefore the disk was found as a bootable device by the bios.

I'll have to keep this in mind next time I experiment.

If I wipe the table, first prior to installing the OS, setup the dos-mbr, and then after a reboot (or dis-mount & remount)...

setup GPT partiton table and make the partitions, and then install the OS.

Next-up, setting up tethering to my iPhone (as per the instructions found on this forum (but it's for a newer OS Devuan 4/5))

to this trinity OS. I like the look of trinity, and when I'm traveling I just need the laptop for a few things,

like internet banking, simple time absorbing game Like OpenTTD ;-) and access to music and movies off my ssd.

I've seen some errors about chipset driver modules, sound not found... maybe it's the newer kernels have depreciated the older hardware. (it's not bit-creep but corp-creep... obsolete(ing) old hardware to make us buy more back-doored junk) ymmv.

Might see if I can get an older kernel from an older iso... or somewhere else, maybe kernel.org has some ver 3 or 4 (not 6) I can use.
More hacking... :-)
one day at a time.
Cheers!

<edit>
YES! https://files.devuan.org/devuan_beowulf/
</edit>

Last night I repartitioned and setup a dos-mbr, and installed trinity to the 4 partitions I setup.

It's booting as normal now, thanks again.

The pc-linux live system has a whole bunch of tools, but I couldn't get any of them to fix the install of Devuan Daedalus plasma at that install attempt.

Still, it's good to know there are tools out there.

I was a bit stubborn about gpt over dos, and I noticed the Flags were a bit different.

Thanks again. Have a great weekend.

I tried the tools on a PcLinuxOs-Live...

In one of my experiences with a similar situation, Opesuse was the only distribution that correctly installed the grub-mbr bootloader on a GPT-partitioned disk, creating a msdos-boot partition.
In addition to it, I tried PcLinuxOs and Devuan.

In addition, the installer  Opesuse allows you to select a DE using a template, and the best part is that at the end it displays a page with suggested installation options that you can change, which is very useful if you made a mistake along the way or missed something.

P.S.  I do not advocate installing opensuse forever, like any other distribution.
I only suggest taking advantage of its greater functionality in such situations. turn on the network, connect its repositories to use the latest updates, etc.

I'm considering option 2. resetting the bios so as to install an msdos mbr with UEFI before I do anything else.

I'd had so much good fortune with my laptop.

One of the last things I did a few days ago was to remove the ssd from the laptop and do a clean install to it from this desktop box/machine

I'll have another crack at it over the weekend.

Thanks for your help and tips.

P.S.
For option 2, maybe you need to select the "legacy" mode in the BIOS, I don't know how this is done on your computer. In one of mine there is no such item at all and the mode is determined by the disk partition.

So I gather I have wiped the mbr part of the ssd when I repartitioned and reformatted, and the bios no longer sees the ssd as a bootable drive.

Detailed information on disk layouts and booting can be found in the install instructions of (e.g.) Archlinux and Gentoo.
Philosophy is: "There is no install program, you do anything by yourself". Instructions and information are corresponding.

But the same error appears on reboot. insert proper disk

OK, I'll do that now.

I made up my mind a long time ago, and always use legacy boot. But my laptop is a slightly different scenario.

It just has to work.

I do know from experience that most of the iso have a similar installer function.

I might try the PcLinuxOs iso, just to see if that gets me out of this situation.

There is an upside to using the grub-super...iso, if the laptop gets lost it will be hard to use without the usb as a key..