I have cinnamon setup on a spare 500Gb Hdd, just the defaults but out of the box operational with wifi.

Nice work.

- UEFI / GPT mode (with secure boot disabled of course)
- Standard Install
- Chose Cinnamon Desktop, OpenRC
--> worked very well
(had to add the non-free firmware-amd-graphics for the AMD GPU)

And once again the same with the XFCE4 Desktop.

Everything works well, though anacron still stalls the shutdown process occasionally.
I therefor just disable the service to be happy.
Thanks for that good progress you make.

Issues and observations: The Aspire 5 has no more CSM mode, its pure UEFI now. The installation works in efi mode, the efivars are present during the installation process. After the first boot I tried to write a modified efi entry with grub-install --bootloader-id=... and then tried to remove the original debian entry. efibootmgr told me that efivars are not supported. After a second attempt I found out that everything works fine when I mount the efivars manually. Since them all boots went fine with efivars mounted automagically.

On a soft start this laptop does not show any efi entry in the boot menu, its only present after a cold start.

rolfie

1. An old Dell PC Optiplex 780
- BIOS / MBR mode
- Expert Install (standard install didn't start)
- Chose Cinnamon Desktop, OpenRC
--> worked very well
(only had a hick-up with the keyboard selection, it worked correctly in X but not on text console. Fixed it with a dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration)

2. A newer Dell PC Optiplex 990
- UEFI / GPT mode (with secure boot disabled of course)
- Standard Install
- Chose Cinnamon Desktop, OpenRC
--> worked very well
(had to add the non-free firmware-amd-graphics for the AMD GPU)

I tested to install a second DE on both machines: XFCE4 using the tasksel program, and it went very well.
Is there a chance to get rid of the installation of anacron by default? That thing still does delay enormously the shutdown, occasionally.

--> Conclusion: it's already very good for me, thank you for that very pleasant and successful adventure

By the way, this is very interesting to play with so far.  I could install IME of Fcitx plus Mozc to enable to type the local charactors via keyboard from the start so this is the big benefit for those who need to install double byte characters like me assuming that is the default for Chimaera .... I hope.

Cheers!

fsmithred wrote:

Wicd is gone, and nothing currently replaces it.

I suggest doing away with wicd for desktop installs, and use connman instead. connman-gtk for gtk DEs like XFCE, and cmst for QT like LXQT.

and switch to iwd for connman backend

Wicd is gone, and nothing currently replaces it.

I suggest doing away with wicd for desktop installs, and use connman instead. connman-gtk for gtk DEs like XFCE, and cmst for QT like LXQT.

Edit: files.devuan.org is  s - l - o - w .  Unless you want to party like it's 1999, choose a faster mirror. They're listed on this page: https://www.devuan.org/get-devuan

#2
Expert install on old (2011) Thinkpad. It asks twice for me to supply the wireless firmware on a usb. I already know that the iso contains the exact firmware I need, so I decline. Twice.

I unplugged the ethernet cable to make sure I could do a wireless install. Installer loads the firmware and detects the nearby wireless signals. I could not authenticate with my router. It turns out that it works fine with no wireless password or if I change the password to one that contains only lower case letters. The original pass had numbers and special characters.

It's not done yet, but it seems to be going along fine.

#1
Full desktop install in qemu yesterday worked. Wicd is gone, and nothing currently replaces it. Wired connection was working with dhcp automatically set up in /etc/network/interfaces.

Xfce did not ask on first login if I wanted default layout or bare layout. Launchers on lower panel exist but are not set to anything. I'll see if I get the same thing on the second install.

The speed probably varies from country to country, but i was getting 2mb per second download speed which to me is fast.

I didnt have any issues with wireless connection, iwlwifi loaded and i was only asked once to supply usb firmware.
I had a different experience it seems, my wifi password contains numbers, lower and upper case letters and special characters and this was accepted. I used the amd64 iso, what iso did you use?

I'm using an old Intell Core2 Duo Dell Optiplex 755... so not a new machine, and no uefi. I'll try the net installer on some of my other machines, give you an update if they have issues.

it says beowulf but it is indeed chimaera

... well spotted, thanks.