Hello:

Always been a matter of common sense / common knowledge to me.

Little black book.
In my opinion, any system can be (eventually) hacked.

Best,

A.

Hello:

Indeed ...
Note the date on the post: March 11, 2012

This chap was bitching about this a whole five years before I started.
Imagine how bad things are now ...

Best,

A.

Hello:

Methinks you nailed it.  8^°

Best,

A.

Hello:

I just use my on-board sound hardware for the basics, but been following this thread to see if I learn something. 8^°

Out of curiosity ...
How does the system ID the USB sound card/s when you open a terminal and execute:

$ lsusb

Just a guess, there may be a clue in the printout.
Or not.

Best,

A.

Hello:

Right ...

Q1: do you need to recover any glass from that broken window?
ie: data you may need because you don't have/cannot find a back-up.

Q2: do you (for whatever reason) want to double boot on your T5600?

If the answer is no to both, you may want to consider doing a thorough clean-up and run tests before installing Linux.
ie: nuke any/every partiton on the HDD, re-format and run a comprehensive memtest.

From your OP it would seem that you are able to boot from a USB, so I expect that you should be able to get that done without issues.

Once you have your box set up and properly tested you can go ahead and install Devuan on it.

Thrashed Windows installations always leave a lot of crud behind.

Caveat:
Your T5600 is probably BIOS/UEFI so read up on the pertinent instructions for installing Linux on it.
eg:
Things like disabling secure boot, setting SATA to AHCI and boot mode to BIOS or UEFI.

To start off see here:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-u … nux-system

Best,

A.

Hello:

Sorry for the OT, will be brief.

So ...
You just did ...

# apt install mate

... and that was it?
No issues with XFCE?

Best,

A.

Hello:

This solution came from Daniel López Azaña's blog. 
I just relayed the message, so to speak.

There is also a page called [crontab.guru] where you can check your [crontab] syntax, among other things.
Go have a read, it is very comprehensive and useful to have in the browser bookmarks.

Here is how I do it, works a charm:
See man [crontab] on how to edit it.

# Entries added to keep log files from growing too large
# http://www.daniloaz.com/en/how-to-prevent-the-xsession-errors-file-from-growing-to-huge-size
#
# Set logfiles to 2Mb and 200 lines max. checking for size every 23 hours
# see https://crontab.guru/#0_*/23_*_*_*
#
# File size examples:
#
# 150Mb -> 150000
# 100Mb -> 100000
# 15Mb  ->  15000
# 10Mb  ->  10000
#  5Mb  ->   5000
#  2Mb  ->   2000
#
# to test cronjob run at 2 min intervals
# example -> */2 * * * *  echo "No systemd here"
#
# For /home/user/.xsession-errors
#
# ---
0 */23 * * * [ $(du -k .xsession-errors | awk '{ print $1 }') -gt 2000 ] && tail -200 /home/$(whoami)/.xsession-errors > $
# ---

The above entry will keep the file under 2mb and when it grows over that limit it will clean up, keeping the last 200 lines.
2Mb of [.xsession-errors] is a lot of text.

eg:
Just now I see that my system's [.xsession-errors] file has 7249 lines and weighs in at a bare 784KiB.

Note:
I have looked at the glibberish that makes up the [.xsession-errors] file once or twice.
I could not make any sense from it and the system apparently worked properly.
And if it did not, I was never the wiser for it. 8^°

What it is useful for is to see just how much unfixed/crap code is routinely swept under the rug.
You know, all that [won't fix] stuff because [whatever].

The thing is that the main issue for most any Linux user is that the bloody file runs wild.
And if not checked, can grow to ridiculous sizes and cause problems.

Best,

A.

Hello:

Have not had to deal with the UEFI crap.
I expect this box to last me at least another five/seven years without having to do much.
Who knows what I will be up to by then.

[OT]
My first SCSI drives ever were pulls from decommissioned IBM servers destined to be cut in pieces with a blowtorch.
A lot of eight 9.1Gb 68pin U160 HDDs purchased for a song from a usual suspect: the bloke in charge of the blowtorch.
On testing, only one was faulty.

Around six years later, when I upgraded box+HDDs to SAS, five (IIRC) were in perfect working order, no defects.
I actually made a profit selling them to a chap who ran a CT scanner service. 
Good hardware is good hardware, there's no two ways about it.
[/OT]

Yes, that was it.
Problem solved.

Had forgotten to disable timeshift and backintime on the cloned drive so I'll have to check if and what was done.
Noticed that I had also neglected to to change display background so as not to forget which system I was working on.  8^°

Now to see about the XFCE surgery ...

Thank you for your input.

Best,

A.

Hello:

Good, got that straightened out.
Thank to both for your input.

Best,

A.

Hello:

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Yes, I have seen that you can use tunefs to change the UUID of a partition to a random/specific one, eg:

# tune2fs -U random /dev/sdb1 

But what about those PTUUID and PARTUUID numbers?
They don't change in a source HDD / clone HDD scenario?

Thanks for your input.
Best,

A.