Hopefully it is not to late!
Billy Talent for the rescue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNrj4reWIgY

I'm happily running daedalus, repo is

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus main contrib non-free

The output of neofetch regarding OS, Kernel and Shell is equal.

Not exactly sure about the OS name "daedalus/ceres".
Packages are tested in ceres, before integrated in daedalus.

(edit: typo)

Hi,
changing the release is always the same.

edit /etc/apt/sources.list - replace ceres with chimaera

apt update
apt upgrade
apt dist-upgrade 

To downgrade or make apt install older packages over newer:

cat /etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release n=chimaera
Pin-Priority: 1001

I messed the file up here https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5208
apt -s whatever does a dry run.

Hi,

I disabled the spectre CPU-patches.
This is not recommend for e.g. cloud servers running potentially evil virtual machines. My computer is just a desktop.
The arguments are from https://make-linux-fast-again.com

# /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet noibrs noibpb nopti nospectre_v2 nospectre_v1 l1tf=off nospec_store_bypass_disable no_stf_barrier mds=off tsx=on tsx_async_abort=off mitigations=off"
$ sudo update-grub

Hi,
the gvfs-* packages are useful for the mounting features in pcmanfm, e.g. disk partitions, usb drives when connecting, MTP devices / androd cell phones. Not strictly needed, but quite handy. Taste is different of course.

What worked for me was a slight modification of the order:
apt install sysvinit-core
reboot
Then following the manual instructions.

The basic idea was to change pid 1 to init before doing something else.
That was after reading https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=5147 post#6, and rrq's migration script and jaromil's ansible.
EDIT: Or if you want to follow the original procedure successfully, then consult farmatito's script for additional measures.

This Issue came out other than I initially thought.

Dear admin,
suggestion is to move the whole thread from "Freedom Hacks" to "Installation" or "Other Issues". On occation.
Thanks.

That's  better- thanks a lot!

Good to know, that apt is still working as expected.
Quite sure I have had some trys using a=oldstable, but there must be another error incorporated.

$ apt policy 
Package files:
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
1001 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian buster/contrib amd64 Packages
     release v=10.12,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=buster,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin ftp.de.debian.org
1001 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian buster/non-free amd64 Packages
     release v=10.12,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=buster,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin ftp.de.debian.org
1001 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 Packages
     release v=10.12,o=Debian,a=oldstable,n=buster,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.de.debian.org
Pinned packages:

if you are lucky, it is just the package status:
/etc/init.d/nvidia-persistenced stop
apt-get upgrade

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=4802

@alexkemp
The vt's have nothing to do with X, they are steady. The underlying process is a getty.
e.g. you can switch from X to vt3 with Alt-Ctrl-F3, but from a vt to vt3 with Alt-F3 (with or without Ctrl).
Another point of view is to see a vt as text console and a X as graphical console.

$ ps ax | grep getty
 1781 tty1     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty --noclear 38400 tty1
 1782 tty2     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
(...)
 1786 tty6     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6

Good question - never crossed my mind - vt's were present as far as I can think.

I'm running a pi-hole on chimaera, installed before migration.
(beside the adaption of the changed network device name) no further issues so far, but I'm not frequently updating.