I have been using KDE Plasma 6.3.6 in normal Debian 13 since, because the battery life on Devuan was even worse than normal ("thin and light" + good CPU/GPU = HAHAHAHA! Your battery is too small!). Debian is fine, great even, but I would rather use Devuan as a matter of principle, I just can't be arsed to make it work. I suppose that makes me a bad person. Oh well.

sudo apt install distrobox

distrobox create --image quay.io/toolbx/ubuntu-toolbox:16.04 --name ubuntu16

distrobox enter ubuntu16

sudo apt install gimp gimp-data-extras

distrobox-export --app gimp

And now you can use GIMP 2.8.18 like any other program on your system.

This is the same version that is available in Debian 9 (Stretch), so if a Distrobox image for Devuan ASCII existed it could be used instead of the one for Ubuntu 16. Ultimately, I don't think it would make much of a difference for this purpose, but Distrobox images for each Devaun release would be neat for those who want to "keep it in the family".

Ps. I still hate new versions of GIMP. Even after making it look like the old version, several important aspects of my workflow are either outright broken or made to be obnoxiously convoluted. I was always fine with GIMP being its own thing, but I guess those who work on it somehow believe if they made it more like Adobe people will magically choose to use GIMP instead. In my case all they accomplished was alienating a person who spent the better part of a decade learning how to use GIMP the way they created it. I know, "no one cares", but I felt like sharing anyway.

"ASCII" used a very dark "Purpy" (very close to black) for obvious reasons.

Meet cinnabar (Beowulf default theme)
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2646
Beowulf was a bloody mess!! Cinnabar captured that quite nicely.

Meet Chimaera's deepsea theme
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=3896
The Deep Sea Chimaera lives in dark blue depths.

Meet the Daedalus sapphire theme
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=4885
Daedalus was surrounded by the magnificent jewel-like blues of the Mediterranean.

IOW . . . the colors of the theme should tell the story of the chosen release title.

again if i manage to get this polished and accepted on debian all it would require to have the devuan way of a volatile machine id per booth would be just 1 config file, which is a benefit for debian to devuan install migrations

Yep, method one is what used on Debian 12 and I imagine it should work the same on Devuan. Worst case, I have to do a manual install, or stick with ESR, which is fine. I used to hate ESR since streaming DRM content was broken/unsupported, but I don't stream anymore so that's irrelevant.