FWIW, pipewire works just fine with fluidsynth (via ALSA sequencer port) here, and on every distro I've used that packages those.
Timidity OTOH, AFAICT has been pretty much a zombie project since 2004.

How is this news (or "myth", "legend", "the truth", "nightmare", other infantile hyperbole in your link), or even particularly useful (beyond embedded systems with miserably small storage)?

Yes, you can compile in all the drivers you need and boot without dynamic /dev or early module loading. That's how it was done when compiling your own kernel was normal practice and booting from a floppy disk was a thing.
It's still quite possible to go that way, assuming you know what drivers you need to mount root. Systemd might make life difficult, but that's nothing new either.

I still have a bunch of Slackware 7 boot disks on my desk, and besides needing to pick the right one for your hardware (because that's the price for no initrd and a 1.4MB kernel), there's nothing particularly fun or novel about them... They're just minimal kernel images with disk controller and filesystem drivers compiled in.
So what? I mean it's trivial to boot even modern Slackware without an initrd, why the big writeup? That "guide" makes it sound like the dude just rediscovered fire or something

Using unmaintained binaries from removed packages in scripts is the antithesis of "just forget about them". Sooner or later gksu will break (especially being GUI bloat linked against GTK), if you want reliable scripts use a supported method like pkexec.

If you must use gksu, at least port it properly (i.e. rebuild it against current libraries) rather than pulling in binary packages from an old release.

A thouroghly terrrible idea, as is using any other TUI or GUI file manager for this. Use rsync or plain cp, in archive mode or with explicit --preserve= parameters.

No kidding. Of course you need root.

Yeah, don't do that either, unless you want to completely bork permissions.

That post details using 'cp -a' to copy files, not mc.

The easiest way to fix this is almost certainly just copying the system again, this time with the right tools and options. You did make and test a backup before starting, right?
Personally I suggest using rsync from a liveCD/USB, or at least single-user mode so there aren't too many open files. Then run it again so it can verify the copy is correct.

You started this @Zapper, with your "bumbling morons" comment. If you expect to be treated with "decency", first try being decent yourself.
Your ongoing tendency to throw gratuitous insults at anyone and anything you perceive as an out-group or an "organisation" is infantile and irritating.

The developers behind Mullvad owe you nothing, and have done nothing to deserve your bile. They provide you software, gratis, and even go so far as to host repositories of debian packages. What exactly have you done for the FOSS community, besides whine?

IME most of the time this kind of thing isn't really about control, it's about liability (at least in the corporate world).
If a company contracts an external provider to handle endpoint protection, veeps who know nothing about IT get to tick their "all practicable steps to protect customer data" and "certified industry standard solution" boxes. If anything goes wrong they can just point at (and potentially sue) $external provider, with no risk of blowback.
The bigger and more widely known the provider, the harder they can lean on the "industry standard" "we're doing what everyone else is doing" angle.

This is how we end up here, not because of some grand conspiracy (not to say they're not out to get you, mind) but because big IT knows they can exploit human laziness and risk-aversion for profit, and their corporate customers often like dealing with a monopoly because of the "safety in numbers" effect.

As for "cloud" more generally, my answer (both personally and professionally) is "go away"... Unless the rep brought biscuits, in which case I'll pretend to listen while I eat them*. It simply does not and can not meet my reliability, serviceability and redundancy requirements.

I don't like surprises, and if I really do need to call somebody at 3am to figure out why a critical system isn't working, I expect the answer to be "I'll be on site, with parts, in 30 minutes" not some phone droid with "looks like $cloud whatever is down, better file a ticket".
'tis the same reason I prefer hardware solutions over inscrutable software "fixes", and local contractors over megacorps with 15 layers of bumbling bureaucracy between their technicians and reality.

*the biscuits, not the rep... Though the reverse is often tempting.

As far as I can see, yeah.
i.e. a bunch of whining because copy-pasting commands without understanding what they do or checking the result doesn't work on Devuan...
Apparently needing to change the distro name yourself rather than being spoon-fed an inline if statement makes for "frustration times a million" and the mullvad folks "bumbling morons".

(emphasis mine) One anecdotal sample is barely a "test" at all, and not even remotely scientific.
Then you go on to claim that blind tests have problems, because the usual "bit-perfect" "exclusive mode" audiophool nonsense.

As for "old theory", I've been there, done that, (as well as built and tested plenty of proper HiFi gear) so I'm no longer gullible enough to get sucked into such arguments... I'm out of here, have fun.

Shiny New Shit
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

As for FOSS and systemd... systemd is FOSS, and while I don't particularly agree with the design or the attitude of the designer(s), that's not really what I was referring to.

For people running proprietary black-box systems... Which is, at least for the most part, not us.

Video summary: Windows bad, Apple bad, Google bad, AI bad, everyone and their dog wants endpoint control and uses FUD and "think of the children" to get it.
IOW, corporate big-tech abuses their power and their users, and normies just don't care because herd-mentality and convenience. Same old, same old. *yawn*

All this really does is incentivise me to avoid buying SNS hardware (instead donating further to the FSF), and keep a weather eye on FreeBSD and OpenRISC in preparation for the day GNU/Linux finally falls to Microsoft EEE and the horde of clueless ex-windows users pushing non-FOSS software and non-FOSS attitudes.

If they have a path to the internet at large, which they won't if you properly secure your wireless AP.
They could of course come with a cell modem, but that's relatively expensive and would require cooperation from a cellular carrier. Manufacturers of two-bit crap don't like to spend any more than they need to, and the reason many devices have onboard wifi is that it costs nothing because it's built into the SoC they're using.

The real solution of course is not to purchase IoT garbage to begin with, such things tend to be bottom-dollar never-patched security nightmares even on a good day.

Yes yes, old news, such toys already exist (microphone included). Don't allow them to connect to your wireless (infrastructure), and don't have devices around that mindlessly try to connect to open networks in general (ad-hoc). Better yet, don't buy them to begin with.

Nobody makes talking teddy bears or "smart" toasters internet capable to spy on you, they do it because "cloud" is the cheapest possible way to implement the features they think will sell more units or because it allows them to milk you for some kind of subscription service.
The most effective thing you can do about this practice is to vote with your wallet and not buy such things.

Riiiight. Who exactly do you think is noticing your "protest"? The same people whose "eyes" you are "opening" with constant whining and opining that "somebody" needs to do "something" about [childish adjective of the day] "evil" corporation?

Buying an off-the-shelf router and installing openwrt on it isn't protesting, the manufacturer made a sale and that's all they care about.
If you want to protest, go organise a protest.

If you ask me, the relentless ill-informed tinfoil-hat noise on this board is the biggest problem with Devuan right now. It's leading the wider community to view the whole distro as a "fringe OS for conspiracy theorists", and people are laughing at us. Please stop already, it's embarrassing.