Easiest way to get up & running is to install from the 'live' version - basically, everything that works on Debian also works with Devuan.

(Try sudo useradd.)

Why use Ventoy, because you can demo various live distros to potential users, you can have one pendrive with different distros for different machines, think 32bit & 64bit, or even have a command line distro.

For personal 'rescue' purposes, I would use the same distro as was installed, if possible.

Is Ventoy really 'needed'? Probably not, but why not use it when it is available.

@rdav

Found the requested (up above) link for Firefox-ESR - https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/a … esktop-esr

I merely downloaded Firefox from their site, used the .deb file, & run it from the created folder in my home directory.

@ einpoklum

These are ready made versions of Devuan - live/installable - saves people having to decide what to install for themselves from the vast collection of programs available - & very quick to install from the live media, usually.

I used to install from Debian CDs/DVD, until I found suitable live/installable media - now I nearly always use live distros to install from.

(To see what they look like, just go to their home pages.)

I keep OpenBSD in reserve, as it were, with the ever increasing amount of crud being put into some distros - Devuan is my choice for ease of use.

I was a long time Debian user - until they forced systemd on us, that made me look around for an alternative, first, AntiX, for many years, (after the demise of #! (Crunchbang) Linux), then the move to Devuan, full time, as I now am.

Welcome, once you have something you like it is difficult to change, but XFCE is a good compromise between heavy weight desktops like Gnome & KDE, which use a lot of resources, & a Window Manager, which is my preference, especially Fluxbox.

If it is a lack of swap, you could create a swap file; but it's always better to have a partition if it is needed.

I think, on XFCE, it is,

Settings > Keyboard > Layout

That's pretty much my recollection too, & when that didn't stop us putting Linux on our machines, they introduced Secure Boot, but our community managed to beat that too, I'm very glad to say.

I'm using Chimaera, & it seems to be perfectly stable - maybe, back up all your personal data, (which you should do anyway), & do a clean install of Chimaera.

Strange behaviour - presumably you did try both USB ports with it - so very strange behaviour from your 'new' laptop.

EDIT: Just noticed, you were putting the image file onto sdb1 - it should be sdb - the disk, not a partition!

My personal configuration is basically twice what you think you need for the root (/) partition, equal swap (/swap) with ram (if you want to 'hibernate'), (else what you think you want), the rest is for home (/home) - (which you will back up to external media every so often, in case you ever have to re install, or your disk goes bad).