I'll tell you what I know. The digits before the key ID in the fingerprint are, well... the fingerprint. Since it's possible for two keys to have the same ID, the fingerprint gives you a more reliable indicator of whether it's the right key or not. I don't know how that gets calculated.

This will get my public key from a public keyserver.

gpg --keyserver=pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 094c5620

Here's what I do to verify. I can't guarantee that it's right, but the output looks good.

$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc 
gpg: assuming signed data in `SHA256SUMS'
gpg: Signature made Wed 06 Jun 2018 05:49:36 PM EDT using RSA key ID 094C5620
gpg: Good signature from "fsmithred (aka fsr) <fsmithred@gmail.com>"

We don't sign the isos. We sign the SHA256SUMS file. If the checksum on the iso matched what's in the file we signed, it's good.

If I try to verify KatolaZ's signature on a computer that doesn't already have his public key, I get this (using the SHASUMS from the installer isos):

$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc 
gpg: assuming signed data in 'SHA256SUMS'
gpg: Signature made Wed 06 Jun 2018 06:55:55 PM UTC
gpg:                using DSA key 8E59D6AA445EFDB4A1533D5A5F20B3AE0B5F062F
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

I know the 2017-12-15 amd64 exegnu iso is jessie. I assume the i386 is the same.

Dual-boot first. If you want TDE on ascii, you could upgrade the exegnu or you could add TDE to a fresh ascii install. There are instructions for devuan at the TDE site. Mixing TDE with Mate in the same installation might cause some conflicts with session managers. Doing this on a test install would be the less stressful way to go.

You could set up wlan0 in /etc/network/interfaces for one or more connections you use regularly.
Or, you could run setnet.sh to set up the wireless.
I've never used wpasupplicant directly, so I can't comment on the commands, but it looks like the script would work. You could create a .desktop file that runs your script and then use that .desktop file to add an icon to the panel if you want to click to connect.

Here's a sample entry for /etc/network/interfaces.
This example is for WPA2 Personal encryption with shared ASCII key.
Items marked with ### are only needed for encrypted networks.
Use appropriate local IP numbers.:

        # wireless interface
        iface wlan0 inet static
                wpa-driver   wext
                wpa-ssid <ssid>
        ### wpa-proto is WPA for WPA1 (aka WPA) or RSN for WPA2 
                wpa-proto RSN
        ### wpa-pairwise and wpa-group is TKIP for WPA1 or CCMP for WPA2
                wpa-pairwise CCMP
                wpa-group CCMP
        ### use 'wpa_passphrase <ssid> [passphrase]' to generate hex-key
        ### enter the result below
                wpa-psk <hex-key>
                
                address  192.168.xxx.xxx
                netmask  255.255.255.0
                gateway  192.168.1.1 (maybe)

        auto wlan0

Somewhere on this page tells you how to set up multiple logical interfaces for a single physical interface. (set up wlan0 for different wireless networks): https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi … rence/ch05

And this page says that the better way to do it is with wpasupplicant, so maybe you should ignore my advice:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … -locations

To install dbus, you would have to go into /etc/apt/preferences.d/ and remove the pins on dbus. (note to self: those pins should really be in their own file, and not in avoid-systemd.) It's possible that other packages with dbus in the name could slip it. I only pinned dbus itself. To see what you have

dpkg -l | grep dbus

Installing openrc is pretty easy either way. I just converted an installed system to openrc to see if it's still easy, and it is. If you convert a system, do yourself a favor and do it in a terminal on the desktop, so you can copy/paste the long command you need to run after installing openrc. (Apt will tell you exactly what to do.)
apt-get install openrc will get you there. My older instructions on this talk about manually installing some libraries, but you no longer need to do that.

Search the forum for openrc and you'll find a few discussions about it.

Edit to add: I've made live isos of systems with openrc using refractasnapshot, and it works without doing anything special. Works easily in live-sdk, too.

Thanks. Any help sorting this out is appreciated. I would include firmware-realtek firmware-ti-connectivity with the wireless firmware. (My laptop uses the former.) Also, in beowulf, firmware-ralink is back. It was included in firmware-realtek for stretch/ascii.

I think the intelwimax is for some older wireless cards. Looks like intel no longer supports it -
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en … -5150.html

One way to do it is to save the package list in a file, then use that list on a new system to get the same installed packages. Check 'man dpkg' before you do this.
On the old system:

dpkg --get-selections > package_list

On the new system:

dpkg --set-selections < package_list

Another way is to run refractasnapshot in a root terminal and make a bootable live-iso copy of your current system (installed packages and configs) and use that to install on other computers. This is my preferred method.

bash ignores lines that start with # but in this it causes the command on the line before it to be terminated instead of continued to the next line.

Correct

Check wicd preferences to make sure the defualt wireless device is set to the correct device. You can see what the device is called if you run ip a or /sbin/ifconfig. You'll find the preferences in a drop-down in wicd's menu bar. (it the triangle/arrow in the upper right of the window.)

Easiest way to include a link in a post is to hightlight the link in your browser's address bar, right-click and copy, then right-click and paste it into your post. No tags needed.

I get "503 Service Unavailable" on your links. Any commented lines in the removal script will be ignored, and those commented packages will not be removed. Everything else should be removed.

I'm not sure what you mean. It's not the exact same list of firmware, but many are the same. Here's what's in the installer isos (this is from a mounted netinstall iso). These are actually symlinks to the packages, which are under /pool.

$ ls mnt/firmware
amd64-microcode_3.20160316.3_amd64.deb                firmware-ivtv_20161130-3_all.deb
atmel-firmware_1.3-4_all.deb                          firmware-iwlwifi_20161130-3_all.deb
bluez-firmware_1.2-3_all.deb                          firmware-libertas_20161130-3_all.deb
dahdi-firmware-nonfree_2.11.1-1_all.deb               firmware-linux-free_3.4_all.deb
firmware-amd-graphics_20161130-3_all.deb              firmware-misc-nonfree_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-atheros_20161130-3_all.deb                   firmware-myricom_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-bnx2_20161130-3_all.deb                      firmware-netxen_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-bnx2x_20161130-3_all.deb                     firmware-qlogic_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-brcm80211_20161130-3_all.deb                 firmware-realtek_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-cavium_20161130-3_all.deb                    firmware-samsung_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-crystalhd_0.0~git20120110.fdd2f19-1_all.deb  firmware-siano_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-intel-sound_20161130-3_all.deb               firmware-ti-connectivity_20161130-3_all.deb
firmware-intelwimax_20161130-3_all.deb                firmware-zd1211_1.5-4_all.deb
firmware-ipw2x00_20161130-3_all.deb                   hdmi2usb-fx2-firmware_0.0.0~git20151225-1_all.deb

That could possibly be accomplished with some creative symlinking.

I think you can get away with two or three partitions. Root filesystem and optional /boot partition on the ssd and /home on the spinning disk. Install everything to the ssd first, with /home as part of the root partition. Then manually edit fstab (and crypttab, I guess) to use the spinning disk as home. Move the new /home to /home.bak or something, so you keep the new config files in case you need them. And maybe make a backup copy of the old config files, in case they get lost or changed. Using the old config files with the new system may or may not work properly in all cases. It'll be trial and error until you get everything the way you want.

I forgot about swap. You want it encrypted. You could either use a swapfile inside an encrypted root partition, or you could make a new lvm on the ssd that includes the swap.

Caveat and disclaimer: I hate the debian-installer enough that I maintain my own installer.

Take a look at my post with examples of raid/lvm/luks with refractainstaller. I don't know how to do such a complex setup with d-i, but I'm pretty sure you could do it similar to one or more of my examples.
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2323

If you want your home spread over both disks, then you need to have both disks (or at least part of each disk) included in the volume group (or in a raid array). Then data will be written to both disks (striped). That may increase performance.

If you then want /var, /tmp and swap to be only on the spinning disk, they need to be in a separate lvm or raid array (or not in the volume that includes /home.) The same would be true if you wanted them to only be on the ssd. If you're ok with them being spread over both disks like your home, then one volume group will suffice.