Are you still using Bedrock?

While this is all very interesting, it does beg one obvious question... If the goal is to run "a few Ceres packages", why not just backport them locally?

I backport packages often. I would not be the person who would write a post that says "do not backport". If that's what you get from reading my post, then I would need to re-write it.

Still begs the question of overall stability.

I've only been trying it for a couple of days, so not sure about long-term stability. So far it's very smooth and easy. Once I get a package installed it doesn't take any real thought. I can keep the Ceres strata updated with (as root) 'strat myceres apt update' and 'strat myceres apt upgrade'.

One thing to watch out for is making sure which "strata" you are working in. The Ceres strata has its own full directory structure, so there are apparently some situations where you can think you are making config changes to the main Beowulf directory structure, but you are actually in the directory tree for the Ceres strata. The packages work on config files in their own directory tree by default, so for example if you installed nano with Ceres and used nano to edit config files, you would be editing files in the Ceres strata by default unless you gave it an express command such as 'strat devuan nano /etc/hosts'.

I can see the added benefits of doing this though (having newer unstable packages on a stable base via bedrock) and it seems like a maybe better idea than mixing distros package managers. Still begs the question of overall stability.

1. Install fresh Beowulf system. Don't use Btrfs file system - ext4 worked for me.
2. Update the system with apt update and apt upgrade
3. Download the BedrockLinux script for your architecture from here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bedro … 7/releases
3. Run the script as root: sh ./bedrock-linux-release-arch.sh --hijack
4. Reboot
5. Add the Devuan Ceres "strata" to the system, with the name "myceres" (or pick your own preferred name):
$ sudo brl fetch -n myceres -r ceres devuan
6. Try adding a package from Ceres to the system, in this case I'll install the 'galculator' desktop calculator program:
[as root] $ strat myceres apt install galculator
7. Copy the .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications/ to add the Ceres version of galculator to the XFCE menu:
$ mkdir ~/.local/share/applications/
$ cp /bedrock/strata/myceres/usr/share/applications/galculator.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Hat tip to Jesse Smith for his excellent review and walkthrough of BedrockLinux in this week's Distrowatch Weekly: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issu … 05&mode=67
BedrockLinux install instructions and more helpful documents are found here: https://bedrocklinux.org/0.7/installati … tions.html