Posts by fsmithred

fsmithred · Installation

dzz, I reproduced your results with xfce in live and installed systems. After cycling through init 1, udevd is not running and gparted won't start until eudev is started.

In an installed lxqt (excalibur) I tried the same thing. After cycling through init 1, udevd is not running, and gparted won't start. After starting eudev, gparted still doesn't start.

fsmithred · Other Issues

Are you saying it works with the old kernel but not with the new kernel? What's the output of aplay -l and are the cards in the same order with both kernels? Are you using any sound server like pulseaudio,pipewire or jackd or do you just use some alsa config file to select the device?

I only have usb headphones to test with, and they're still working with 6.12.115.

fsmithred · Installation

It's in excalibur-proposed-updates.

$ apt policy apt
apt:
  Installed: 3.0.4devuan1
  Candidate: 3.0.4devuan1
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.4devuan1 500
        500 http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged excalibur-proposed-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.3devuan1 500
        500 http://sledjhamr.org/devuan/merged excalibur/main amd64 Packages

fsmithred · Installation

It's not a snapshotted system, so there's no corner to grab until the user boots the iso. It's made with live-sdk, so it's essentially a debootstrapped system.

fsmithred · Installation

I tried running the script in that elgoind thread and it gets rid of the extra cgroups stuff that accumulate on repeated logins, but it doesn't fix the problem with gparted not starting after the first login. I also couldn't start it from terminal after the first login.

fsmithred · Installation

If I run that script manually, I get an error message that elogind-daemon is not running. I checked 'ps' and I agree that it's not running, but elogind is running. I changed one line in the script from

if ! pgrep -x elogind-daemon > /dev/null

to

if ! pgrep -x elogind > /dev/null

and the error message goes away.

Script works to remove cruft in /sys/fs/cgroups, but it doesn't fix a different problem I have in the freia desktop-live iso - gparted works on first login but does not start on subsequent logins. Message in /var/log/auth.log is "The gnome keyring socket is not owned with the same credentials as the user login: /home/devuan/.cache/keyring-4FE4X3/control" I'm not sure if it's supposed to fix that.

fsmithred · Installation

Cycling through init 1 does result in gparted not starting. I think it's related to the elogind problem described here - https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=8273 Same thing happens after switching to xfce-polkit.
Relevant auth.log is pasted below.

mate-polkit: It gets installed automatically. I removed it in the build but should have purged it instead. I'll probably revert to using mate-polkit and let that get changed in whichever task-* package is pulling it in.
(Edit: damn, it's xfce4 that pulls in mate-polkit, and that's not one of our forked packages.)

greenjeans, which file-chooser are you talking about? Where am I going to set its size?

Here is /var/log/auth.log from freia desktop-live with mate-polkit after cycling through init 1 then starting gparted.

2026-11-03T10:13:58.418179+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: New seat seat0.
2026-11-03T10:13:58.437089+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event3 (Power Button)
2026-11-03T10:13:58.437120+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event1 (Lid Switch)
2026-11-03T10:13:58.437147+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event2 (Sleep Button)
2026-11-03T10:13:58.437173+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event0 (AT Translated Set 2 keyboard)
2026-11-03T10:13:58.437198+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event10 (ThinkPad Extra Buttons)
2026-11-03T10:13:58.437226+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event17 (ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device)
2026-11-03T10:14:11.434094+00:00 localhost slim: pam_unix(slim:session): session opened for user devuan(uid=1000) by devuan(uid=0)
2026-11-03T10:14:11.434131+00:00 localhost slim: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
2026-11-03T10:14:11.540531+00:00 localhost slim: gkr-pam: gnome-keyring-daemon started properly
2026-11-03T10:14:11.557212+00:00 localhost elogind[2057]: New session 1 of user devuan.
2026-11-03T10:14:11.562484+00:00 localhost slim: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
2026-11-03T10:14:17.496317+00:00 localhost pkexec: PAM (polkit-1) /usr/lib/pam.d is not supported on this system; see /usr/share/doc/libpam0g/Debian-PAM-MiniPolicy.gz
2026-11-03T10:14:17.510825+00:00 localhost pkexec: pam_unix(polkit-1:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by devuan(uid=1000)
2026-11-03T10:14:17.512281+00:00 localhost pkexec[2851]: devuan: Executing command [USER=root] [TTY=unknown] [CWD=/home/devuan] [COMMAND=/usr/sbin/xfpm-power-backlight-helper --set-brightness-switch 0]
2026-11-03T10:15:41.966908+00:00 localhost su: The gnome keyring socket is not owned with the same credentials as the user login: /home/devuan/.cache/keyring-Y0ZVX3/control
2026-11-03T10:15:41.966917+00:00 localhost su: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
2026-11-03T10:15:41.968758+00:00 localhost su[3419]: (to root) devuan on pts/0
2026-11-03T10:15:41.969364+00:00 localhost su[3419]: pam_unix(su-l:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by devuan(uid=1000)
2026-11-03T10:15:41.969412+00:00 localhost su[3419]: The gnome keyring socket is not owned with the same credentials as the user login: /home/devuan/.cache/keyring-Y0ZVX3/control
2026-11-03T10:15:41.969420+00:00 localhost su[3419]: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
2026-11-03T10:15:56.961252+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: New seat seat0.
2026-11-03T10:15:56.975024+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event3 (Power Button)
2026-11-03T10:15:56.975157+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event1 (Lid Switch)
2026-11-03T10:15:56.975230+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event2 (Sleep Button)
2026-11-03T10:15:56.975301+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event0 (AT Translated Set 2 keyboard)
2026-11-03T10:15:56.975369+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event10 (ThinkPad Extra Buttons)
2026-11-03T10:15:56.975440+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: Watching system buttons on /dev/input/event17 (ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device)
2026-11-03T10:15:57.965924+00:00 localhost slim: pam_unix(slim:session): session opened for user devuan(uid=1000) by devuan(uid=0)
2026-11-03T10:15:57.965963+00:00 localhost slim: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
2026-11-03T10:15:57.973551+00:00 localhost slim: gkr-pam: gnome-keyring-daemon started properly
2026-11-03T10:15:57.985212+00:00 localhost elogind[3895]: New session 2 of user devuan.
2026-11-03T10:15:57.990813+00:00 localhost slim: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
2026-11-03T10:16:00.144224+00:00 localhost pkexec: PAM (polkit-1) /usr/lib/pam.d is not supported on this system; see /usr/share/doc/libpam0g/Debian-PAM-MiniPolicy.gz
2026-11-03T10:16:00.147273+00:00 localhost pkexec: pam_unix(polkit-1:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by devuan(uid=1000)
2026-11-03T10:16:00.148941+00:00 localhost pkexec[4792]: devuan: Executing command [USER=root] [TTY=unknown] [CWD=/home/devuan] [COMMAND=/usr/sbin/xfpm-power-backlight-helper --set-brightness-switch 0]
2026-11-03T10:16:15.793469+00:00 localhost polkit-agent-helper-1[5051]: PAM (polkit-1) /usr/lib/pam.d is not supported on this system; see /usr/share/doc/libpam0g/Debian-PAM-MiniPolicy.gz
2026-11-03T10:16:21.869917+00:00 localhost polkit-agent-helper-1[5051]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
2026-11-03T10:16:21.869924+00:00 localhost polkit-agent-helper-1[5051]: gkr-pam: stashed password to try later in open session
2026-11-03T10:16:21.876807+00:00 localhost pkexec: PAM (polkit-1) /usr/lib/pam.d is not supported on this system; see /usr/share/doc/libpam0g/Debian-PAM-MiniPolicy.gz
2026-11-03T10:16:21.878425+00:00 localhost pkexec: pam_unix(polkit-1:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by devuan(uid=1000)
2026-11-03T10:16:21.879121+00:00 localhost pkexec[5012]: devuan: Executing command [USER=root] [TTY=unknown] [CWD=/home/devuan] [COMMAND=/usr/sbin/gparted]
2026-11-03T10:16:48.092548+00:00 localhost su: The gnome keyring socket is not owned with the same credentials as the user login: /home/devuan/.cache/keyring-4FE4X3/control
2026-11-03T10:16:48.092556+00:00 localhost su: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
2026-11-03T10:16:48.094372+00:00 localhost su[5201]: (to root) devuan on pts/0
2026-11-03T10:16:48.094925+00:00 localhost su[5201]: pam_unix(su-l:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by devuan(uid=1000)
2026-11-03T10:16:48.094968+00:00 localhost su[5201]: The gnome keyring socket is not owned with the same credentials as the user login: /home/devuan/.cache/keyring-4FE4X3/control
2026-11-03T10:16:48.094976+00:00 localhost su[5201]: gkr-pam: couldn't unlock the login keyring.
2026-11-03T10:17:01.934906+00:00 localhost CRON[5217]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by root(uid=0)
2026-11-03T10:17:01.938067+00:00 localhost CRON[5217]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root

fsmithred · Installation

greenjeans, as I understand it, that mess in the .desktop file only runs the first time you boot. After that, the correct background is set. Of course, that only counts if you install it. With the live iso, every time you boot it is the first boot.

fsmithred · Installation

In excalibur, all the desktop environments except kde respect the background setting in desktop-base. I haven't tested them all in freia, but I assume that xfce is the only one that changed.
https://git.devuan.org/fsmithred/screenshots

fsmithred · Installation

Here's the background fix. It's specific for xfce.

# /etc/xdg/autostart/default-background.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Default-Background
Exec=sh -c 'cdis=$(xrandr | grep connected\  | cut -d " " -f 1) ; for port in $cdis; do rt=$(xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor$port/workspace0/last-image 2>/dev/null); if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /backdrop/screen0/monitor$port/workspace0/last-image -t string -s "/usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-background" --create; fi; done; mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart; echo "[Desktop Entry]\nHidden=true" > ~/.config/autostart/default-background.desktop'
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

Reference: https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=18585

New iso here. It's around 100mb smaller without all the qt stuff.
https://files.devuan.org/devuan_freia/desktop-live/

sha256sum:

493e48c0bc7c745894255abbe1a0dd0ed6a82949141698ce692211bb9621b55f  devuan_freia_7-preview-2026-11-01_amd64_desktop-live.iso

@Ron: gdebi is not in the iso. I tried adding it without recommends in the running live system, and I agree that it did not work. Make a separate topic for that and maybe it can get fixed. Also check debian bugs - someone else may have reported it.

fsmithred · Installation

Thanks to all.

Release notes and README - these are the last to get done because we never know what debian will throw at us until the end. I made a note at the top of both to say that they have not yet been updated.

partitionmanager - was leftover in the package list from when I was testing that other installer that requires a bunch of qt stuff. (calamares) This is also the source of some of the wayland packages, but not all. At least one is there for yad.

The remaining four wayland libraries for atril only use some kilobytes of space.

gparted still works for me after removing partitionmanager and its deps.

The desktop background is controlled by a magic .desktop file that rbit wrote. Without that, the desktop background is black and the recommended fix (by upstream xfce team) is to recompile xfce. That ain't gonna happen here. Have a look at /etc/xdg/autostart/default-background.desktop if you're inclined to figure out another way to deal with it. Setting the bg with desktop-base the old way no longer works.

Rebuilding now with changes above and also replacing mate-polkit with xfce-polkit.

@Andre4freedom: It's not a big deal. I figured there was a problem with your image or some strange hardware issue. Glad to hear it was a simple solution.

fsmithred · Installation

How did you prepare the boot media? It's working here in qemu and also dd'd to a usb it boots legacy or uefi.

fsmithred · Installation

Take it for a test drive to see if anything is broken.
https://files.devuan.org/devuan_freia/d … p-live.iso

sha256sum:

8f1547575ac66468ac8f9f30fc95167ac6b5d84d484ce89c44456545a616d856

fsmithred · Freedom Hacks

Here it is: https://git.devuan.org/fsmithred/refracta2usb

I committed a few key releases starting with 0.9.1 and ending with the last few up to 2.4.3. That's all for now. I will eventually merge your changes and bump the version. Thanks.

fsmithred · Freedom Hacks

Yeah, please do it. I've been meaning to put r2u on gdo starting with the earliest version I could find, but I haven't gotten around to it. I don't have any suggestions right now other than go ahead. It would be a personal repo, so if you screw it up, we can fix it or nuke it and re-do it.

Oldest version I can find right now is 0.9.1 on sourceforge. Somewhere around here I think I still have the original that I got from you. My plan is to start with the oldest I can find and commit that with a version tag, then add each successive version and do the same. That might be overkill.

fsmithred · Devuan Derivatives

You figured it out. I'm glad, because the first time I read your post I was not fully awake, and I got thrown off by the nilfs2. Never heard of that one.

Formatting the filesystem has to come after creating the encrypted volume. If you want something other than ext, you would have to use the cli installer and do some stuff manually. Somewhere in the early pages of the documentation section of this forum is a post that explains how to use refractaintstaller for lvm and raid, with or without encryption. That would work for other kinds of filesystem formats, too.

fsmithred · Devuan Derivatives

When I tried xfce-polkit a few months ago, it didn't fix the problem, but I just tried it again in a live iso and it now works. Thanks for the reminder.

fsmithred · Devuan Derivatives

Refracta 13.5 xfce amd64:
https://get.refracta.org/files/stable/r … 8_1920.iso

gpg sig:
https://get.refracta.org/files/stable/r … sha256.asc

sha256sum:
9d30f72ff6995bcfa64f9129d54cd6ac83d383624512ff4444ae7683435ee5a9 refracta_13.5_xfce_amd64-20261018_1920.iso
https://get.refracta.org/files/stable/r … iso.sha256

Updated software (previous iso was made last May)
Replaced lxpolkit with mate-polkit to fix issue with synaptic and gparted not starting from menu.

That's all.

fsmithred · Hardware & System Configuration

I have yet to find a properly documented (understandable) set of instructions to reset partiton sizes and such operations.

One or more of these should work.

Restore partition table with sfdisk
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=rest … h%20sfdisk

fsmithred · Freedom Hacks

Thanks! I downloaded it and will start using it. I think you can stop calling yourself a non-maintainer.

fsmithred · Other Issues

Devuan's live-sdk is probably a little less user-friendly than live-build. I believe it is possible to use live-sdk with debian, but you would need to look through the scripts to change some URLs. It's also possible to use live-build with devuan - there have been a couple of re-spins that use it. (See Crows for example).

Another method is to use refractasnapshot to make a live iso that's a copy of your installed system with all your software choices and settings. You could install in a VM or on hardware for this to work. This way will also work with Debian. If Exe GNU is close to what you want, you could start with that and modify what you want. Although if you really want debian, you probably should start fresh with debian. I don't know if anyone has migrated a devuan system to debian.

fsmithred · Hardware & System Configuration

Maybe

sudo chown -R root:root /usr

That should fix most if not all of it. AFAIK there's no wheel group in debian-based systems. For future reference, changing ownership on system files should be done carefully ans sparingly. Changing ownership of everything in /usr recursively is extremely bad advice. You relied on a friend who routinely lies, cheats and steals.

fsmithred · Devuan Derivatives

I can't reproduce this exactly, but it's close. When I choose to select a region in the screenshooter, the entire screen gets dark, but not black. I can still see everything. If I repeat that with compositor turned off, the screen does not go dark. That's on up-to-date excalibur with same software versions you posted.

I don't have any good suggestions for what to do with that information. Maybe increase the brightness of your screen?

FWIW I'm using nouveau driver with an old geforce 210.

fsmithred · ARM Builds

I got an answer from another party. You didn't do anything wrong. The raspberry pi has a hardware bootloader that boots the kernel binary directly. The package manager doesn't know anything about it and that's why you couldn't upgrade the kernel. I don't know if there's a way to manually upgrade it.

fsmithred · Hardware & System Configuration

The issue that's known is that daedalus is not trixie. It's whatever "B" was before trixie and was 12 (bookworm?).

Devuan Excalibur is Debian Trixie.

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » Yesterday 21:08:53

#2 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] USB audio interface problems since kernel 6.12.113 » 2026-11-08 11:57:08

#3 Re: Installation » Security vulnerability in APT allows execution of malicious code » 2026-11-05 13:40:04

#4 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-03 22:57:29

#5 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-03 15:13:51

#6 Re: Installation » elogind leaks session cgroups » 2026-11-03 15:06:02

#7 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-03 11:30:30

#8 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-02 19:46:38

#9 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-02 16:37:16

#10 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-01 21:47:48

#11 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-01 17:51:06

#12 Re: Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-11-01 13:32:49

#13 Installation » freia desktop-live test iso » 2026-10-31 17:50:27

#14 Re: Freedom Hacks » Refracta2usb (non-maintainer) fixes and updates.. » 2026-10-25 23:46:31

#15 Re: Freedom Hacks » Refracta2usb (non-maintainer) fixes and updates.. » 2026-10-24 19:58:49

#16 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [SOLVED] Refracta Installer - possible bug found » 2026-10-23 15:35:19

#17 Re: Devuan Derivatives » Refracta 13 (Excalibur) updated xfce iso » 2026-10-19 00:06:41

#18 Devuan Derivatives » Refracta 13 (Excalibur) updated xfce iso » 2026-10-18 19:55:47

#19 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] SD Card problem » 2026-10-07 16:28:14

#20 Re: Freedom Hacks » Refracta2usb (non-maintainer) fixes and updates.. » 2026-10-06 19:27:23

#21 Re: Other Issues » How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan » 2026-10-05 12:25:43

#22 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » (HowTo) repair wrong permission-set? » 2026-10-05 12:09:30

#23 Re: Devuan Derivatives » Compositor became a victim » 2026-10-01 15:41:42

#24 Re: ARM Builds » [SOLVED] Upgrading kernel via apt » 2026-09-29 01:11:44

#25 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] tzdata from daedalus-security is a deb12 build on a deb13 system » 2026-09-25 21:06:05

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