I don't get the same results as you. The noautologin option is working correctly here on two different live-isos.

The devuan desktop-live iso has user 'devuan' pre-defined, and with noautologin, boot stops at the slim login screen.
A refracta live iso has user 'user' pre-defined, and with noautologin, boot stops at the lightdm login screen.

Maybe I should call it a pre-existing user instead. That user already exists and has a home directory inside the squashfs as opposed to being created when the system boots.

The default user already exists in devuan live isos. In debian live isos, the default user is created during boot if the option 'config' is included in the command line. I think if you remove that, you'll have the default user again.

@tyder, see if you can narrow down which kernel parameters make a difference. TAB or e to edit the boot entry on the fly.

Here's mine.
Booted from usb on hardware. It works here.

 inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 5500 driver: i915 v: kernel
  Device-2: Chicony Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
  Display: x11 server: X.org v: 1.21.1.16 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
    dri: iris gpu: i915 tty: 121x24 resolution: 1600x900
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast platforms: gbm,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: mesa v: 25.0.7-2 note: console (EGL sourced)
    renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 5500 (BDW GT2), llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.7 256 bits)
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo de: xfce4-display-settings x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop,
    xrandr

This one (dzz's third example) shows me the boot menu and goes to black screen.

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2048 -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd  -boot d -cdrom devuan_excalibur_6.1.1_amd64_desktop-live.iso

I can get to serial console in qemu and log in. Slim is not running, xorg is running. I can kill xorg, then log into console as root and run startx. Desktop comes up. Alternatively, I can drop to console, install lightdm, start lightdm, get graphical login and desktop comes up.

This one (abbreviated fourth example - no network settings) works from boot menu to desktop.

qemu-system-x86_64 -machine accel=kvm -m 1924 -boot d -cdrom devuan_excalibur_6.1.1_amd64_desktop-live.iso -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd -boot once=d,menu=off

Can you get different results using my qemu commands?

All the major desktops are available in the installer isos.

Install ntpsec-ntpdate and the command ntpdate-debian will work again.

Some of the broadcoms are left out because they require the user to agree to certain conditions. I thought this was one of those, but now I'm not so sure. I might try making a live iso with broadcom-sta-dkms, and if it works, I can upload it for you to use. Instructions for installing all the broadcom drivers can be found at wiki.debian.org,  and they might require that you have an internet connection to get what you need to have an internet connection.

Easiest way to get what you need is if you can use an ethernet cable. You need to add non-free to the active lines in sources.list.

Alternatively, you could download the packages in windows and then install them when you boot into devuan. Here's the list of what you need:

# apt install broadcom-sta-dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Installing:                     
  broadcom-sta-dkms  linux-headers-6.12.57+deb13-amd64

Installing dependencies:
  binutils                   libalgorithm-diff-perl     libitm1
  binutils-common            libalgorithm-diff-xs-perl  liblsan0
  binutils-x86-64-linux-gnu  libalgorithm-merge-perl    libquadmath0
  build-essential            libasan8                   libsframe1
  dkms                       libbinutils                libstdc++-14-dev
  dpkg-dev                   libc-dev-bin               libtsan2
  fakeroot                   libc6-dev                  libubsan1
  g++                        libcc1-0                   linux-headers-6.12.57+deb13-common
  g++-14                     libcrypt-dev               linux-kbuild-6.12.57+deb13
  g++-14-x86-64-linux-gnu    libctf-nobfd0              linux-libc-dev
  g++-x86-64-linux-gnu       libctf0                    make
  gcc                        libfakeroot                manpages
  gcc-14                     libgcc-14-dev              manpages-dev
  gcc-14-x86-64-linux-gnu    libgprofng0                pahole
  gcc-x86-64-linux-gnu       libhwasan0                 rpcsvc-proto

Edit:
I installed into a VM and was able to install broadcom-sta-dkms without having to agree to a license. I'm surprised. I'm making a new iso now that you can test. I don't have hardware for that.

I fixed the broken link. Here's the right one.

https://git.devuan.org/devuan/documenta … ackgrounds

ps_mem.py shows:

# old thinkpad with 8G ram running daedalus, xfce
7.1 MiB +   1.1 MiB =   8.2 MiB	        NetworkManager
15.4 MiB +   3.2 MiB =  18.6 MiB	nm-applet

# satellite with 8G ram running excalibur, xfce
 17.5 MiB +   1.4 MiB =  18.9 MiB	wicd
 24.9 MiB +   3.7 MiB =  28.6 MiB	wicd-client

# newer old thinkpad with 8G ram running excalibur, lxqt
  8.0 MiB + 814.5 KiB =   8.8 MiB	NetworkManager
 11.1 MiB +   4.3 MiB =  15.5 MiB	nm-tray

I thought you need to have the right package, grub-pc or grub-efi-amd64 to install the bootloader correctly, so I always make sure I have the right one before any grub-install happens. Two days ago, I did a bios install with grub-efi-amd64 installed and I rebooted to a grub rescue prompt. But that was with a misconfigured calamares, so maybe it doesn't count.

Looking at the files that grub-efi-amd64 provides, I have no idea what it does. Looks like nothing. The script gathers information for a bug report.

$ apt-file list grub-efi-amd64
grub-efi-amd64: /usr/share/bug/grub-efi-amd64/presubj
grub-efi-amd64: /usr/share/bug/grub-efi-amd64/script
grub-efi-amd64: /usr/share/doc/grub-efi-amd64

You're right. I just checked a beowulf live-iso and wicd disconnects the active connection before it completes the new connection. That's consistent when going from wired to wireless and from wireless to wired.

I did the test with two routers in the house to see if I could be connected to two different networks. I can't do that with wicd. I can do it with network-manager - I could ping both routers. Maybe I'll make a wishlist bug report for that some time. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to seeing more test reports from people.

"Try it, you'll like it."

@rations:

Yesterday I tried again using your modules and configs instead of my minimally edited debian files. It works. (replaced the user with what was entered in the installer)

One point (not the only) that I'm confused about is grub. I changed one line in the bootloader module so that it would boot efi or bios, and I'm wondering how it does that. Is a network connection required for that to succeed? My iso has grub-efi-amd64 installed, but I did a bios install and it got grub-pc from somewhere. (either network or it found the deb package that I put in the root of the squashed filesystem)

I'm going to keep playing with this, but it's probably going to go slowly. I have too much other stuff to do. Thanks for this contribution. I now have less hate for calamares. Maybe there can eventually be a calamares-settings-devuan package.