Why don't you connect a DVD drive via USB? You won't need to boot from it since you'd only be pulling packages from the DVD(s). And, yes, it can be done because that's what I used to do for an old laptop that wouldn't reliably boot from a DVD, even though it had a DVD-ROM drive. With this solution, installing the additional packages from the DVD(s) would need to be done post-installation.

Here's the command you would need to make this work:

# apt-cdrom -d <path-to-the-USB-DVD-drive>

After installation and set-up is complete, you would need to edit sources.list to remove the reference(s) to the DVD(s).

Phil

Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, I did, and the problem remains.

Phil

I thought I should post a follow-up to my previous message to explain my situation a little better. Back in 2017 I created a customized live CD based on Debian Jessie, but without systemd. While testing my live CD, I discovered that the "Restart" and "Shut Down" buttons in Xfce were not working properly. Since I built my live CD with "Recommends" (recommended packages) disabled, I figured that I must be missing some semi-important package(s). After a little research, I guessed that installing policykit-1 might fix the problem, and I was right.

To reiterate, this solution worked for me:

# aptitude update
# aptitude install policykit-1

That's it!

That systemd-free Debian Jessie was installed in a VM, and later on it was dist-upgraded to Devuan ASCII. The upgrade went smoothly, and afterward LightDM continued to work normally. I don't know what the best solution to this problem is, but I thought I should chime in with my experience in case the information is helpful to someone.

Phil

Hi devuser,

Thank you for your efforts to try to determine possible causes for this error. Your reply prompted me to think more intensively about other possible causes for the error message, so it was definitely helpful.

I found the culprit: VirtualBox. I recently upgraded a Debian Stretch VM to Devuan ASCII. I created the new sources.list on the host system, and copied it to the guest via a shared directory. That's how the permissions got changed. Oddly enough, when I copied a test file from the guest to the host, via the same shared directory, the permissions were not changed. From now on, I'll have to remember to tar or zip files before copying them to guest systems.

Phil

This information may be helpful: HOWTO: JWM Basic Configuration

Phil

For me, apt-cacher-ng was flakey, and one of the features simply didn't work. When I was doing some research on the matter I found comments by others who had similar experiences with apt-cacher-ng. That research also led me to squid-deb-proxy, which I decided to try. After I figured out how to configure it, it has been working without problems. I did have a problem with it once, but it was probably my fault -- I installed it on a fresh system and it refused to start up using the old cache. After I deleted the old cache and let it create a new one, everything was fine.

Also, getting live-build to work with squid-deb-proxy was simple.

From my /etc/live/build.conf file:

# The line below is for squid-deb-proxy.
LB_APT_HTTP_PROXY="http://localhost:8000/"
LB_MIRROR_BOOTSTRAP="http://packages.devuan.org/merged"
LB_MIRROR_CHROOT_SECURITY="http://packages.devuan.org/merged"
LB_MIRROR_BINARY="http://packages.devuan.org/merged"
LB_MIRROR_BINARY_SECURITY="http://packages.devuan.org/merged"

Phil

Hi David,

Instead of an antivirus, considering using these things instead: AppArmor, FireHOL, Firejail, and NoScript or uBlock Origin.

Phil

Hi,

What is the reason for switching from live-build to live-sdk?

Phil