I did that, installing a bare system utils-only then purged exim and tasksel MATE.
Different issue this time: the menu item 'root terminal' ( /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator) is not taking the root password. Luckily there is an xterm emualtor that works, so I am able to run sudo.

When I run 'sudo apt-get remove --purge exim*' the package list contains mate-desktop stuff.. so it seems MATE has a lot of dependencies requiring exim.

Exim is not currently part of webmin, and I am experimenting with that and usermin so I would prefer a different mta. I might have to leave exim in place, or try a different DE. btw, webmin did a fantastic job to support Devuan.

Dec 24 05:06:15 clock-setup: Setting Hardware Clock to 05:06:15 = 1514091975 seconds since 1969
Dec 24 05:06:15 clock-setup: ioctl(RTC_SET_TIME) was successful.
Dec 24 05:06:15 clock-setup: Not adjusting drift factor because the --update-drift option was not used.
Dec 24 05:06:16 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/10open-iscsi
Dec 24 05:06:16 finish-install: iSCSI detected, refreshing initramfs
Dec 24 05:06:16 in-target: update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-686-pae
Dec 24 05:06:19 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/10update-initramfs
Dec 24 05:06:19 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/15cdrom-detect
Dec 24 05:06:19 cdrom-detect: Unmounting and ejecting '/dev/sr0'
Dec 24 05:06:19 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/20final-message
Dec 24 05:06:21 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/30hw-detect
Dec 24 05:06:21 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/50config-target-network
Dec 24 05:06:21 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/55netcfg-copy-config
Dec 24 05:06:22 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/60cleanup
Dec 24 05:06:22 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/65partman-md
Dec 24 05:06:22 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/90base-installer
Dec 24 05:06:22 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/90console
Dec 24 05:06:22 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/94random-seed
Dec 24 05:06:22 finish-install: info: Running /usr/lib/finish-install.d/94save-logs

Using dynamic disk option the actual size of the file VirtualBox is using smaller than the limit, about 8 GB instead of 128 GB, so there is no need to resize.

Looking in /var/log/installer/syslog these are the last lines.. is the log suppose to end here, at this point? There is no delay between setting the system time and ejecting the CD but in reality there was about 10 minutes..

Where should I look, or how should I start another install to find evidence? It happened twice already, so before I try again I wonder is there a way in VirtualBox to monitor real-time logs or something..

This is one of my most recent

deb http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie main non-free contrib
deb-src http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie main non-free contrib

# jessie-security, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-security main contrib non-free
deb-src http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-security main contrib non-free

# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free

# jessie-backports, previously on backports.debian.org
deb http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-backports main contrib non-free
deb-src http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-backports main contrib non-free

Most time spent in updates is with source repositories which you or I do not have, so no idea why it takes you as long as you describe. I have more (much more), I use an apt-get cache, proxies and more so there could be the reason for no comparison.

Indeed very good news, especially for those of us who are not well-rounded experts (yet).
I installed webmin via APT, and all works the way described (apt-transport-https is the only package needs to be added to the default base instance).
I also uninstalled / installed exim4 and a few other exercises - all is fine. I am using the 1.870 update.

webmin is so useful, and it is great to see it working with SysV init.

What I could use is examples to build and configure the virtual boxes. I am hoping someone already put some work into a vagrant base box, or has preseed cfg files on the web I can use.
Eventually I am going to work my way through this page https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller, but again that is for Debian. When things break I need to test both Debian and Devuan to be able to tell if the error is in my cfg file or it is due to deviation between the two OS. Eventually most of the errors are going to be deviations, but as of right now my preceed files are pretty basic and full of errors.

With preseed I actually need to finish the installation and boot to the box to tell if the script worked. In some cases the install is going to finish, without any errors. I think preseed breaks only over critical errors - no network, bad mirror address and such, otherwise it grabs some default values where the ones in preseed are invalid or missing. Not something anyone would want, obviously. so I wish preceed would stop the installation when there is any issue.

The most time-consuming is to make DHCP / DNS work, and that is where, I assume, a vagrant base could be of some help. Not perfect for my use though, Vagrant requires the first network card to be NAT - which is not what I want. I want internal network so all virtual interfaces are exposed via kernel routing and IP masquerading. Again, I currently have this on Debian. It is the most time consuming, because when there is any error in the stack of parameters the new install is going to boot to a random hostname with a random IP - and that is not what I want. I want the hostname and the IP that is assigned to the MAC, every time the box is rebuilt.

Manual configuration is not helping me since the purpose of my project is to automate the most. I have a plan but I have little time to play as this is not what I do for living. I really like Bitnami and my idea is about the same, except the Bitnami 'product' is still heavy binaries. I much prefer typing a few commands, and the box is automatically built and configured. mostly from cache on my network. On a box with i5 and RAID 10 I should be able to build 5 base Devuan clients concurrently, with LAMP and Joomla! installed in less than 5 minutes.

This is all talk at this point, I have a lot of work to do until I have something to show.

I tested a few automated Devuan VirtualBox installs with this script.

d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US
d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select us
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto
d-i mirror/protocol string http
d-i mirror/country string us
d-i mirror/http/hostname string auto.mirror.devuan.org
d-i mirror/http/directory string /merged
#d-i mirror/http/proxy http://192.168.1.2:3142
d-i passwd/root-login boolean false
d-i passwd/user-fullname string Tom Thumb
d-i passwd/username string tom
d-i passwd/user-password password tom2mot
d-i passwd/user-password-again password tom2mot
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true
d-i time/zone string US/Central
d-i clock-setup/ntp boolean true
d-i clock-setup/ntp-server string pool.ntp.org
d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
d-i partman-auto/method string regular
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic
d-i partman-partitioning/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman/mount_style select uuid
d-i base-installer/kernel/image string linux-image-amd64
d-i apt-setup/non-free boolean true
d-i apt-setup/contrib boolean true
#d-i apt-setup/services-select multiselect security, updates
#d-i apt-setup/security_host string security.debian.org
tasksel tasksel/first multiselect standard
d-i pkgsel/include string openssh-server
d-i pkgsel/upgrade select safe-upgrade
popularity-contest popularity-contest/participate boolean false
d-i grub-installer/only_devuan boolean true
d-i grub-installer/bootdev  string /dev/sda
d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note

It seems to work fine as it did create the user and password. The script is still loading from pulic_html/d-i/jessie/preseed.cfg
Should any part of this script be changed to something else?

Also, I do not know enough about apt-cacher to say this for sure, but it seems to be working. On disk all I see is the Debian depositories nothing Devuan-related, and with base isntalls it is difficult to say...

I am still trying to have a chance to install webmin, as the next step would be to test d-i and make sure the hostnames and the IPs are also automated by a DHCP server. To manually configure DHCP/DNS is just too much work for me as I am no expert.

Anyone has a d-i script or a vagrant box used for base installs, or other advise to help me improve VirtualBox base installs?

The modem was just an example of something that is part of the minimal install, and it is currently recommnended to be removed by Reduce. It could be added and removed with apt anytime.

  When we consider Devuan's bithdate there is a lot of legacy stuff already. Other distros may extend back all the way to the days of 386, whie Devuan was born in the Cloud already and the farthest back is Pentium. It seems logical that legacy stuff to be optional, not default.

  This might be like to the Itanium stuff in Windows, every time someone configures a WSUS server there is that list of Itanium stuff recommended to be Declined. Of course someone else might come allong and say "Put that back, we just bought a bunch of those. we are going to install Windows XP 64-bit on them to replace the ones on our production floor". No doubt it could happen. Industrial stuff especially keep lingering on and never seem to become obsolete.

  I guess one of the reasons besides space and mips savings for Reduce could be just to avoid that extra code which could by chance bring a server down or open the door to an attack. Both also very unlikely, but again there is a chance.

  My personal reasons for posting about this is the virtual stuff. VirtualBox is providing a lot of the facilities for each instance, and the minimal install could be very different for a VritualBox install from a bare-metal or another hypervisor install. I work with full OS images, as my virtualbox instances are models of real-world scenarios. Each VirtualBox maybe moved to another computer and provisioned the full resource pool there, or scaled back and shared with a number of other images on one machine. Once all is working fine the virtual is replaced with a real box.

  There might be scenarios where Virtualbox images are used for production, but my guess is they are used more in testing and educational context. A more recent distribution like Devuan could implement a bit of a house-cleaning in this area, and support cleaner and leaner virtual installations better than other distros.

I am here to find someone who would like to write and share a shell script that duplicates the output of my SQL scripts. Maybe I should have asked on SQL support web instead, they too have people with good scripting skills.
Apologies for wasting your time, I'll try to be more considerate with my posts in the future.

I auto install my boxes with preseed to the default minimal, then I run this script:

#!/bin/bash
# ###
#
sudo apt-get update
#
sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server mysql-client
sudo systemctl restart mysql.service
#
sudo apt-get -y install php5-common libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cli
sudo apt-get -y install mcrypt
sudo systemctl restart apache2
#
sudo apt-get -y install phpmyadmin
#
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webmin.list'
sudo wget -qO - http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install webmin
#
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get -y autoremove

This is for Jessie as I need the php5 stuff still, and of course there is 'service'. I am going to start working on Devuan installs soon and rework this script.

By the way, the last time I ran this scrip on a Devuan 1.0 virtualbox image all worked except Webmin, but I remember reading something about that being resolved by the good people there.

I am going to try and create a list similar to the one on Debian, because it might be extreme but there are also a lot of stuff there nobody needs anymore. I cant remember the last time I saw a modem LOL

I did not try this on Devuan yet, and it is not Docker but - on Debian I use preseed pointed to a local share, the new PC is grabbing the IP and the hostname from local DNS/DHCP server based on MAC, and of course there is an apt-cacher as well to grab any packages from the local network. In my opinion it is much better than Docker for base images. Maybe someone could verify that this works on Devuan as well...