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#1 Re: Freedom Hacks » ALSA without PulseAudio and PipeWire » Yesterday 15:22:59

More on desktops:

lxqt pulls in pulseaudio (like lxde does)
cinnamon (I had forgotten about this one) pulls in pipewire.
That leaves gnome to be checked. Someone else can do that, please.

#2 Re: Freedom Hacks » ALSA without PulseAudio and PipeWire » 2025-11-16 23:08:00

The default installs of xfce and lxde pull in pulseaudio. KDE and mate pull in pipewire, but it doesn't work without some setup. See other recent discussions for details. I don't know what lxqt and gnome pull in.

If you install just the base system with no desktop, you can add whatever you want. Avoid the task-* packages if you want to be selective. You can have just alsa or alsa with either pipewire or pulseaudio.

#3 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Excalibur desktop-live: "switch user" action segfaults xfce4-session » 2025-11-14 12:25:16

Steve,

Thanks for the report. It took me a little while to find "switch user". It's only in the action button on the right side of the panel. It doesn't appear in the Logout window you get from the Applications menu. I can confirm that switch user doesn't work in the default setup.  Also, the who command returns nothing.

I believe you found another bug in the Slim display manager. If you install lightdm, then "Switch user" becomes an additional choice in the logout screen, and it does work. Also, 'who' works then. This problem wasn't in the betas because slim was creating a black window over the desktop with autologin, so I used lightdm in the builds instead.

I was able to reproduce the grub failure in virtualbox, but in qemu it worked normally. I'll stop here on that point - I'm suppressing a rant about grub.

Point taken about the "copy files" button. If you do a uefi install, the button says "Install bootloader". That's an easy fix.

Edit: Forgot to mention ssh. The desktop-live is based on a default task-xfce-desktop install which does not include openssh-server.

#4 Re: Installation » Upgrade from Devuan Daedalus 32-bit to Excalibur » 2025-11-13 22:45:53

I don't think the kernel cares about usrmerge. It might be the base-files package that demands it. You can't upgrade to excalibur without merged /usr and you can't revert the system to un-merged.

Someone thought it was a good idea to rearrange the deck chairs, even though we're all still sitting in them.

#5 Re: Off-topic » Hard Rust requirements for APT from may next year » 2025-11-13 20:34:47

List of rust packages in devuan: https://termbin.com/xakg

I can't post the whole list here.

413 Request Entity Too Large

TLDR:
70430 packages, including virtual packages
3561 packages, excluding virtual packages

#6 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] Cannot change background » 2025-11-12 20:19:55

Correction: The new xfce4 will allow users to change the desktop background after install, but it won't let distro developers change it. We're supposed to fork xfce4-desktop if we want that.

Gnostic, in Desktop Settings, go to the Folder drop-down menu, choose the directory you want, then DO NOT select a file from the list. Just click on the Open button. It will open that directory and show you thumbnails that you can select.

#7 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Where are my logs? » 2025-11-12 14:37:39

I'm not seeing that behavior on fresh install of excalibur or upgrade from daedalus to excalibur. syslog and kern.log are there. /var/log/messages has been missing for years. Make sure rsyslog and cron are installed and running.

I did an upgrade from daedalus to excalibur yesterday and the date on /etc/rsyslog.conf is February of 2023. Nobody has edited it.

#8 Re: Installation » Running QEMU/KVM with runit » 2025-11-09 13:10:54

Two things.

1. You can run qemu without libvirt. I have one system with it and one without and I haven't noticed any difference. Maybe I need to do something different to engage libvirt.

2. File a bug report for libvirt on bugs.devuan.org to adjust the dependencies. (assuming it works with runit)
You could test it by unpacking the offending deb package, adjusting the dependencies in debian/control and repacking the deb. Install it and see if it works. I don't recall the commands for unpack/repack, but it should be easy to find.

#9 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » excalibur/KDE non-root X11 session is broken » 2025-11-08 23:05:55

I got this on a kde install of excalibur I did yesterday.

root      1421  0.6  4.0 880628 88088 ?        Ssl  17:43   0:01 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt2 -auth /run/sddm/xauth_yIsirg -noreset -displayfd 16

I have /etc/sddm/wayland-session and /etc/sddm/Xsession and neither one looks like a config file to me.

#10 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] Moving from sysvinit to runit » 2025-11-08 01:32:42

apt install runit-init runit-services
reboot

Note: If you installed from a live iso and want to make a new live iso from your system, add live-config-runit to the list of packages to install.

#11 Re: Installation » Upgrade from Devuan Daedalus 32-bit to Excalibur » 2025-11-06 23:23:12

It says you're missing free firmware. Make sure firmware-linux-free is installed. If you need non-free firmware, you won't be able to use a libre kernel. Have you tried booting the daedalus kernel? It should still be there.

The alsa error has a fix somewhere else on this forum. Search for alsa_restore and I think you'll find it. It's an easy fix.

Also make sure the video drivers are installed. I'm not sure which you need but there's xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon

#12 Re: Installation » Excalibur: Mounting NFS shares using /etc/fstab » 2025-11-06 14:06:42

Andre,

You could file a bug report against network-manager requesting that the missing file be restored. We already fork that package, so the report goes to bugs.devuan.org. I find email submission to be the easiest.

Instructions:
https://bugs.devuan.org/Reporting.html

#13 Re: Installation » Upgrade from Devuan Daedalus 32-bit to Excalibur » 2025-11-06 12:08:57

Yes, follow the instructions on the linux-libre site. Install their key, add their sources file, update, install.
You'll still have the devuan sources active and can upgrade packages. The kernel will come from the freesh sources.

Note: I pasted the 'modernized' sources below. It's possible to use the modernized source for freesh along with the older sources.list for the devuan sources. I just tested it and 'apt update' didn't complain.

Here's an example iso of 32-bit devuan with the linux-libre kernel. Refracta is just devuan with some tweaks and different set of packages. This one is old. I need to make new isos and stop calling them Testing.
https://get.refracta.org/files/testing/ … 5_1010.iso

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/devuan.sources (generated by running 'modernize-sources')

# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb
URIs: http://deb.devuan.org/merged/
Suites: excalibur excalibur-security excalibur-updates
Components: main 
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/devuan-archive-keyring.gpg

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/freesh.sources

X-Repolib-Name: GNU Linux-libre Freesh Repository
Enabled: yes
Types: deb
URIs: mirror://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/mirrors.txt
Suites: freesh
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/freesh-archive-keyring.gpg

#14 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] Lightdm replaced by Slim in Excalibur ? » 2025-11-06 11:39:48

Yeah, slim was creating a black window that covered the desktop when autologin was set (the default in the live environment) so I switched to using lightdm. Slim got fixed for the release, so I switched back to it.
https://bugs.devuan.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=857

#16 Re: Installation » Devuan 5 to 6 install failures » 2025-11-05 17:03:22

I tried an upgrade from daedalus to excalibur yesterday and ran 'aptitude -s upgrade' to see how much was getting upgraded. I like the format of the output better than apt or apt-get. Anyway, after a couple minutes of waiting for aptitude to finish figuring it out, I killed it and just went ahead with 'apt update'. That worked fine.

The base-files issue is explained in the output you posted, and it includes the solution. That part is not news.

* The base-files package cannot be installed because
* /bin is a directory, but should be a symbolic link.
*
* Please install the usrmerge package to convert this system

#17 Re: Installation » [Solved] Debian Bookworm/(Trixie) -> Daedalus/(Excalibur) » 2025-11-05 15:19:16

If you're going from bookworm to excalibur, you're doing an upgrade at the same time as the migration, so it's probably a good idea to look over the upgrade instructions. One gotcha on upgrade is that you must install the usrmerge package before you upgrade.  I don't think it matters if your sources are pointed to bookworm or excalibur for that package. (I've done it both ways.)

Upgrade to Excalibur
https://www.devuan.org/os/documentation … -excalibur

#18 Re: Installation » Upgrade from Devuan Daedalus 32-bit to Excalibur » 2025-11-05 01:24:38

I can now say that it's still possible to upgrade 32-bit daedalus to excalibur. I just did it.

I removed the kernel metapackage (linux-image-686-pae) and installed usrmerge.
Changed sources.list from daedalus to excalibur.
Installed linux-libre kernel 6.12.57-gnu
Ran apt update, apt upgrade, reboot, apt dist-upgrade, apt autoremove.
done
Rebooted again just to be sure.

#19 Re: Installation » Upgrade from Devuan Daedalus 32-bit to Excalibur » 2025-11-04 21:18:04

Next paragraph in the release notes starts with:

Installer isos and live CDs for amd64 are available for download

And this section:

### Reduced support for i386

There is no i386 installer iso for Devuan 6 Excalibur, following Debian's
choice to remove their official i386 kernel and installer.

And if you look at the debian release notes it explains that you can run 32-bit in chroot or container.

I believe it's still possible to upgrade a 32-bit system. You won't get a new kernel, so if you have the kernel metapackage linux-image-686-pae you might need to remove it first. I'm not sure about that.

You can use a linux-libre kernel if you don't need proprietary (non-free) firmware.
see: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7208

#20 Re: Installation » Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt? » 2025-11-04 20:57:58

This could use some testing. You'll need to add excalibur-proposed-updates to your sources.

<devuanci>    * Fork for Devuan, just for excalibur so xfce has an polkit GUI agent.
<devuanci> xfce-polkit_0.3+v20220621-3~excalibur1 (excalibur-proposed-updates): started binary build for amd64 on amd64-build03

#21 Re: Installation » Excalibur: Mounting NFS shares using /etc/fstab » 2025-11-03 15:57:48

I gave up using fstab to mount nfs shares a few years ago. I think it was because of problems if the server or the client rebooted. I use autofs now. It auto-mounts the share when you access the share. Simple config desribed here: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=58917#p58917

I use these options in /etc/export. It looks like I added 'sync' either in daedalus or excalibur. (I don't have a daedalus to check right now.)

(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,crossmnt)

#22 News & Announcements » Announcing Devuan 6.0 Excalibur! » 2025-11-02 12:44:54

fsmithred
Replies: 34

Dear Friends and Software Freedom Lovers,

It is with great pleasure that the Devuan Developers hereby announce the
release of Devuan Excalibur 6.0 as the project's newest stable release.
This is the result of lots of painstaking work by the team and extensive
testing by the wider Devuan community.

INSTALLATION and DOCUMENTATION

Whether you are upgrading an existing Devuan install, migrating from
Debian or installing from scratch, instructions and guidance can be
found online:

- https://devuan.org/os/install
- https://devuan.org/get-devuan

Packages, netboot images and installation media are available through a
resilient network of:

- http package mirrors (http://deb.devuan.org or choose manually from
  https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/mirror_list.txt)
- http, https, ftp, and rsync ISO mirrors
- torrent and magnet

Please take time to read the Release Notes. They include important
configuration information and tips to help your install or upgrade go as
smoothly as possible.

- https://files.devuan.org/devuan_excalib … _notes.txt

For the impatient, you can go straight to the package and sources.list
information or the installation media downloads:

- https://devuan.org/os/packages
- https://files.devuan.org/devuan_excalibur/

RESOURCES and SUPPORT

- Mailing list: https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/m … stinfo/dng
- IRC: #devuan #devuan-dev #devuan-arm (Libera)
- Forum: https://dev1galaxy.org
- Press contact: freedom at devuan dot org
- Source code: https://git.devuan.org
- Bug tracker: https://bugs.devuan.org
- Package information: https://pkginfo.devuan.org
- Popularity contest: https://popcon.devuan.org

AFTER EXCALIBUR

The next Devuan release, 7.0, is codenamed Freia. Repositories are
already available for the adventurous to test.

APPRECIATION

We wish to thank all of you for the incredible support given to Devuan.
Without your help and feedback, Devuan could not be the reliable and
versatile distribution that it is.

To support the Devuan project you can examine our financial reports and
donate at:
  https://devuan.org/os/donate
or take up one of the tasks listed at 'How you can help Devuan':
  https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1380#p1380

The Devuan Team

#23 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] nfs trouble on Chimaera » 2025-11-01 17:22:11

You can use autofs to automount nfs.

Add this at the bottom of /etc/auto.master:

/mnt	/etc/auto.nfs

Create /etc/auto.nfs containing something like:

<share-name>    /path/to/<your-symlink-name>

Make the symlink and restart autofs:

ln -s /mnt/<share-name> /path/to/<your-symlink-name>
service autofs restart

- your-symlink-name can be the same or different from share-name.
- If you're already using /mnt for something else, you can mount the share somewhere else. Just make an empty directory to be used as the mountpoint.
- Don't use fstab for any part of this.

#24 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] newer kernel needed. daedalus backports or excalibur? » 2025-10-25 18:31:00

You can uncomment excalibur-security and excalibur-updates. They've been active since around when trixie was released.

#25 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] apt problem - cannot update upower package to newer version » 2025-10-24 00:07:50

We no longer fork upower. The version you have installed is for ascii. One or more of the following should work.

apt install upower/daedalus

If that doesn't work, download the deb package and install it with dpkg.

apt download upower    #if you get the ascii version with this, then you need to remove ascii from sources.list or sources.list.d/

#you could also do this to download the right version:
apt download upower/daedalus

dpkg --force-downgrade -i upower_0.99.20-2_amd64.deb

We all know it's not really a downgrade, but apt thinks the one with the epoch is newer.

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