The reason refracta2usb didn't get into the repo is because the package isn't built the official way. Ordinarily, that's just a matter of moving a few things around inside the deb package (and using different tools to build it). The problem is the code itself is a steaming pile of spaghetti, and I am afraid to touch it. It really needs a complete overhaul.

You can find the package here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/tools/

@stopAI
Thanks for the clear and simple instructions. It works! (in daedalus, not in chimaera)

I just installed pipewire-audio and it automatically removed pulseaudio. It did not remove pavucontrol or pulseaudio-utils. Those can coexist, and they they still work.

@aluma

What do you get if you run this?

apt policy network-manager network-manager-gnome network-manager-tde

Seriously,, we got to the fifth post and nobody has yet asked why network-manager got removed?

I'll ask the OP. Why did network-manager get removed? Were there any hints or clues in the output? What is different or non-standard about your install?

FWIW, I just finished upgrading my ceres about five minutes ago, and network-manager and network-manager-gnome are still installed. This is a standard devuan desktop install with xfce, i386, no customizations.

I really don't know what they are talking about. It looks like openrc already provides its own start-stop-daemon.

apt-file list openrc
...
openrc: /lib/rc/sh/start-stop-daemon.sh

Oh wow. It makes sense once I figured out that the list of metapackage names does not contain any metapackage names, and that the list of Descriptions does contain metapackage names.

Good idea. I have a note in the config file that says to make sure all the necessary cryptsetup packages are installed, but I don't list them, and that note is out of sight. Also, cryptsetup-initramfs is a Suggests, not a Recommends, so you still wouldn't have gotten it if you had not excluded Recommends.

As others suggested, start with a minimal install and add what you want. If you exclude Recommends and avoid metapackages like the task-* packages, you will have a better time removing any parts you don't want. That's how I make Refracta isos https://get.refracta.org. I'm pretty sure Exe GNU/linux is also made that way (with Trinity Desktop) and some of the other devuan re-spin distros are lighter than the full task-* experience.

$ apt show task-xfce-desktop
Package: task-xfce-desktop
Version: 3.68+devuan4u1
Priority: optional
Section: tasks
Source: tasksel
Origin: Devuan
Maintainer: Devuan Dev Team <devuan-dev@lists.dyne.org>
Installed-Size: 9,216 B
Depends: tasksel (= 3.68+devuan4u1), task-desktop, xfce4, slim | lightdm
Recommends: xfce4-goodies, xfce4-power-manager, xfce4-terminal, mousepad, default-dbus-session-bus | dbus-session-bus, xsane, parole, quodlibet, atril, tango-icon-theme, network-manager-gnome | connman-gtk | cmst, synaptic, libreoffice-writer, libreoffice-calc, libreoffice-impress, libreoffice-help-en-us, mythes-en-us, hunspell-en-us, hyphen-en-us, system-config-printer, orca, libreoffice-gtk3
Download-Size: 1,308 B
APT-Sources: http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera/main amd64 Packages
Description: Xfce

I don't think there will be any official virtual images. There are a couple you can find by searching the web, but it's not clear who made those images.

For a secure environment, you can just boot a live-iso in a virtual machine. Once you're there, you could also install it to a virtual hard disk and make your own place for testing apps.

Where are you seeing wayland coming in? I just tried a simulated upgrade in a ceres VM that's a couple months behind, and it's not showing up. I also tried a simulated install of mate and it doesn't show up there, either. There are a few libwayland-somethings installed, but I assume they do nothing since I'm running xorg.

For GTK-3, I'm not worrying about it. I'm experimenting with lxqt in anticipation of GTK-4 and -5. (shudder)

Maybe installing gnome-keyring will do it.

Description: GNOME keyring services (daemon and tools)
 gnome-keyring is a daemon in the session, similar to ssh-agent,
 and other applications can use it to store passwords and other
 sensitive information.
 .
 The program can manage several keyrings, each with its own master
 password, and there is also a session keyring which is never stored to
 disk, but forgotten when the session ends.

sysvinit is just a dummy transitional package. Use "sysvinit-core" instead of "sysvinit" in the above command.