Thank you, fsmithred. I will have a look at it.
As a side-note: I have never observed that problem when not using OpenRC. I'm not so sure the problem is not related to OpenRC.
I will let you know when I can find an answer. Could be a while.
Have a great time!
Andre4freedom

It's exactly what I do. Even using gparted or good old fdisk.
I don't want an installer that throws everything into root.
I need always:
1. a boot or efi partition
2. a system partition (/root)
3. a swap partition
4. a /home partition
5. some special partitions like /srv, or /av.
And mostly in ext4. excluding efi or swap. Sometimes xfs for very large files like video etc.
But not everybody sees it the same way.
Cheers

Thank you, kapqa, you saved my day! And all of you, thanks.
Your procedure is perfect.
Have a good day.

Interesting, thank you, rolfie.
At least there is your solution should the problem be present. Great. Bravo.

It's still funny that I have one Daedalus machine that I use daily as my my main desktop-computer that does not show the problem. It was installed with the first iso and maintained from then on. (As always Devuan, OpenRC, lighdm, cinnamon)
I'm not going to research why. I have very strong passwords - and a very conscious way to use IT.

no, there should be no "killscripts" (/etc/rc5.d/K01iscsid -> ../init.d/iscsid) in runlevel 5, because the system cannot go "down" to that level, only up to it (/etc/rc5.d/S01iscsid -> ../init.d/iscsid for example) or down from it. > RunLevel S, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 6.
Going down in runlevels activates the kill-scripts (also links!) and going up the start-scripts (links) of the target runlevel.
Special exceptions exist as always.
That's how Unix Init-SysV worked and still works.
Runlevel 0 = shutdown
Runlevel 6 = reboot
1,2,3,4,5 are runlevels. Default runlevel is defined in /etc/inittab.
Hope this helps.

The hack is in the file /etc/lightdm/users.conf

The section:
[UserList]
minimum-uid=500

may help a lot. The root user is UID 0, GID 0.
So you couldn't find a root login entry in the login window.
I hope this helps. Greetings!

Dear me... @rwall....
What exact version did you install?
Which ISO file?
Which method?
What special software do you install?
Have you thought of the SysV-Init files of your software to be used with OpenRC?
(/etc/init.d/......, maybe you have to install/edit/generate these special init.files, there may exist packages for it as in artix))
What hardware are you installing on?
Have you tried the superb method of testing with a live-iso as recommended by greenjeans?
And, last but not least:
If you are asking for help on this forum, after studying the documentation, please give detailed information on your configuration. (software-sources, versions, repo-info, system,.. simply all that enables our clever and volunteering members to help or give advice.

Have a good day all the same.

Welcome here to the Devan-community
You talk about strange phenomenons.
If you use the Devuan development-branch, you are pretty much on your own - it's for developers and testers.
The stable branch is still Devuan Daedalus (5).
There, OpenRC works exceptionally well, but please be reminded that in OpenRC the init program is still from the trusted InitSysV, and only the service-controller (the one who takes care of the daemons) is OpenRC.
I use sometimes Artix (OpenRC) and there the init program is part of OpenRC. And the structures of the logs and their placement is different (more like you show in your post).
Please read the instructions on:
https://www.devuan.org/os/install
A lot of information and help can be found in the documentation there.
Good luck.

@greenjeans
that's strange, I have tested Excalibur with both, XFCE and Cinnamon and never had such boot-tome error messages about missing ALSA rules... (Tested with OpenRC though, could this make the difference?)

Thank you for your hints.
I will pause it here. Once a bright idea comes up, I will try again and let you know.
BTW: the /etc/resolv.conf is not the problem. Name-resolution is working except for the /etc/hosts lookup.
(only local fixed addresses are in there.)

@steve_v
here you are a little bit off the problem.
The /etc/resolv.conf is always correct, after every reboot too.
All files, /etc/hosts, /etc/nsswitch.conf are correct.

The ISP box is correctly set up and gives the correct name-server addresses.

I can connect to every Internet-resource without problems.
mDNS resources are found as well.
Only that bloody host-entry "172.22.22.05    colossus.home colossus" in /etc/hosts is ignored.
I have tested with former Devuan releases: no problem
I have tested Artix: no problem
I have tested Linux Mint: no problem.

Next thing I try is to replace network-manager with connman. That's how it works in Artix.
I will keep you posted, be patient, I'm busy.

But anyway, steve_v, thank you for your good intentions.

Oh, it looks like the kernel version is important:

root@tinkerbox:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Devuan
Description:	Devuan GNU/Linux 6 (excalibur/ceres)
Release:	6
Codename:	excalibur ceres
root@tinkerbox:~# 

root@tinkerbox:~# uname -a
Linux tinkerbox 6.12.38+deb13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.12.38-1 (2025-07-16) x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@tinkerbox:~# 

And the rest of all information in one block:

root@tinkerbox:~# ifconfig
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 172.22.22.60  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 172.22.22.255
        inet6 fe80::c42c:d3ce:d1e1:f30f  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 70:54:d2:ab:5e:4e  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 179  bytes 109589 (107.0 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 215  bytes 25830 (25.2 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 20  memory 0xf7e00000-f7e20000  

eth1: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether 70:54:d2:ab:5e:4f  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 18  memory 0xf7d00000-f7d20000  

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 31  bytes 4263 (4.1 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 31  bytes 4263 (4.1 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

root@tinkerbox:~# netstat -r
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
default         172.22.22.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 eth0
172.22.22.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0

root@tinkerbox:~# hostname
tinkerbox

root@tinkerbox:~# cat /etc/networks
default		0.0.0.0
loopback	127.0.0.0
link-local	169.254.0.0

root@tinkerbox:~# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
# Generated by NetworkManager
nameserver 213.221.144.240
nameserver 213.221.143.240

***********************************

root@tinkerbox:~# ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (142.250.178.196) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from pnzrha-aj-in-f4.1e100.net (142.250.178.196): icmp_seq=1 ttl=116 time=22.8 ms
64 bytes from pnzrha-aj-in-f4.1e100.net (142.250.178.196): icmp_seq=2 ttl=116 time=25.9 ms

root@tinkerbox:~# ping colossus
ping: colossus: Name or service not known
root@tinkerbox:~# ping colossus.home
ping: colossus.home: Name or service not known
root@tinkerbox:~# ping printer.home
ping: printer.home: Name or service not known

root@tinkerbox:~# ping printer
PING printer (172.22.22.12) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from printer (172.22.22.12): icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.637 ms
64 bytes from printer (172.22.22.12): icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.650 ms
64 bytes from printer (172.22.22.12): icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=0.646 ms
64 bytes from printer (172.22.22.12): icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=0.638 ms
// what a surprise! The printer gets resolved by mDNS //

***********************************

# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# Example configuration of GNU Name Service Switch functionality.
# If you have the `glibc-doc-reference' and `info' packages installed, try:
# `info libc "Name Service Switch"' for information about this file.

passwd:         files
group:          files
shadow:         files
gshadow:        files

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns
networks:       files

protocols:      db files
services:       db files
ethers:         db files
rpc:            db files

netgroup:       nis
root@tinkerbox:~#