Security is complicated. Paraphrasing the Arch wiki, you can never make a system 100% secure unless you unplug the machine from all networks, turn it off, lock it in a safe, smother it in concrete and never use it.

The contents of the non-free part (i.e, the CPU-vendor-provided "opaque" update data) are unknown to debian. Why should I need to install them if the vendor doesn't tell me what bugs they're fixing? Debian argues that it's very difficult to know for sure whether you need a microcode update or not, but it is not safe at all to just ignore them or you could experience one of those unexplainable and infrequent issues.

"Privacy is complicated". I find this a less misleading sentence

For what it's worth, I've never install any microcode update (whatever the company) and I never had any problems. However, it doesn't mean that I am not discouraged. But rather I would prefer to give a try to some of the existing libre bootloaders. The current controversy around them left me somewhat confused though.

Another possible solution:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1400034 … 404-rugged

You can verify this by the following way (you need to install check-dfsg-status):

# check-dfsg-status -s
No non-free or contrib packages installed on gnuinos!  You have completed the first step to enlightenment.

Bear in mind that the forced use of packages.gnuinos.org in APT's sources.list during the installation makes sure not installing non-free firmware just because sections like contrib, non-free or non-free-firmware don't exist in this archive (only main, main/debian-installer...). As a result, the bad behaviour of hw-detect has no harmful side effects in the gnuinos-installer.

Btw, I'm updating the iso images with the last version of vdev that speeds up the boot process:

https://www.gnuinos.org/mirror/daedalus/runit/

Read the header of /etc/fuse.conf. I have the following setup (fuse is required by vdev):

# The file /etc/fuse.conf allows for the following parameters:
#
# user_allow_other - Using the allow_other mount option works fine as root, in
# order to have it work as user you need user_allow_other in /etc/fuse.conf as
# well. (This option allows users to use the allow_other option.) You need
# allow_other if you want users other than the owner to access a mounted fuse.
# This option must appear on a line by itself. There is no value, just the
# presence of the option.

user_allow_other

# mount_max = n - this option sets the maximum number of mounts.
# Currently (2014) it must be typed exactly as shown
# (with a single space before and after the equals sign).

#mount_max = 1000

i.e., you want to enable user_allow_other.

I made a payment a few days ago but the process hung. I supposed that it was a glitch in the client area, so I did phone my provider and they told me that they would send me an invoice via email. The fact is that I never received that invoice; nevertheless, my website continued working on following days. This is why I supposed that the payment process did succeed. I'll have to ask my provider again on monday. Thanks for the information, prospero!

The good news is that today I got a tiny version of vdev working for the devuan installer. The challange is to build a vdev-udeb mini-package focused to d-i.

Hello Ralph

In order to discard possible issues with kernel drivers/modules I've recompiled the image replacing linux-libre with the stock kernel of debian:

https://www.gnuinos.org/tests/debian-kernel/

There is also another minor change: the option modprobe.blacklist=pcspkr has been removed from the boot parameters.

On the other hand, can you say me what's the output of the command below in the various scenarios (including devuan live)?

$ lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display'

Thanks again for your patience!

DISCLAIMER: debian-installer probably won't work with debian's kernel because it's built with linux-libre, but we're interested on live sessions.

Please, can you try with this other image?

https://www.gnuinos.org/eudev/

It's the same xfce x86_64, but with eudev instead of vdev.

Thanks in advance.

It works fine for me. However, there was a missing script /etc/sv/dbus/check in the openbox and xfce images. So, I recompiled and uploaded those images. Thanks for the advertisement!

Oui, please, stop bloating this forum with superfluous information. The list of your /usr/share/applications contents has no interest at all.

Done.

I've updated the JWM images.