Good stuff. I'm gonna play with that when I get a chance. I don't have the answer to your last question, but this might be helpful -

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xresources

You have to add code tags manually here.

I had a problem with refracta2usb in vdev. For some reason, it didn't recognize /dev/disk/by-id so I changed it to by-uuid. On the command line, it seems to work normally.

I can't get vbeinfo to work, but videoinfo shows me the three resolutions that work right plus 800x600.

I just tried it with a splash that's 640 x 480, 8-bit/color RGB, non-interlaced png, and 800x600 still does not work. (garbled boot text).  That appears to be the same as the grub splash in the exegnu iso. (according to the file command).  I think I need to do some more tests.

Edited to correct "works correctly" to "still does not work."

Isoyhybrid uefi boot is fixed in exegnulinux_amd64_20161225.iso 

BTW, 800x600 doesn't work right on my laptop. Boot messages are scrambled and take up the top third of the screen. I changed the mkefi function in snapshot to use 640x480 for that reason. I hope that works for everything.

Further testing:

Iso boots uefi in qemu and virtualbox.

Re-imaged usb with isohybrid. Hardware boot fails (doesn't find a bootloader at all.)
So I tried booting from the hard drive - at grub menu I dropped to grub prompt:

set root=(hd0)  #usb is first drive, tab-complete shows no partitions
chainloader +1

gives error something like "Invalid EFI path..."

So then I tried

set root=(hd0)
linux /live/vmlinuz boot=live union=aufs nocomponents=xinit
initrd /live/initrd.img
boot

and it boots normally.

(note: 'union=aufs' is also needed if you use encryption.)

I found the same as you with the grub-*-bin packages. In Refracta, I started with grub-efi then replaced it with grub-pc but didn't autoremove efibootmgr or (whatever else came with it). The grub-efi packages are included in the iso. There is a refractainstaller-uefi (yad) included in the iso. For a uefi install, when it gets to the grub install, it opens a terminal in a chroot in /target and allows you to install the grub-efi packages, which then install the bootloader to the efi partition. It works, but it needs some refinement.

There's a reason for installing both grub-efi packages instead of just grub-efi-amd64, even though the -bin package is already installed. But I don't recall exactly what that reason is. Maybe debconf runs? Maybe update-grub runs? Not sure, but it might be in my notes.

Quote from the author of figos:

lxde is another metapackage. Same with xfce4. You can install xfce4-session, xfdesktop4 and thunar without pulling in libsystemd0. Also, remove lxde and install the parts you want. Here's the list of packages with lxde in the name.

aptitude search lxde
p   education-desktop-lxde                                - Debian Edu LXDE desktop applications                           
p   live-image-lxde-desktop                               - Live System Image Components (LXDE desktop)                    
p   live-task-lxde                                        - Live environment support for Lxde                              
p   lxde                                                  - Metapackage for LXDE                                           
p   lxde-common                                           - LXDE common configuration files                                
p   lxde-core                                             - Metapackage for the LXDE core                                  
i   lxde-icon-theme                                       - LXDE standard icon theme                                       
v   lxde-session                                          -                                                                
v   lxde-settings-daemon                                  -                                                                
p   openbox-lxde-session                                  - LXDE session manager and configuration files                   
p   task-lxde-desktop                                     - LXDE 

You can check what will be installed along with any package by adding the -s option. (apt-get -s install <packages> or aptitude -s install <packages>)

I think the problem is task-xfce-desktop or some other metapackage that depends on a bunch of things, even if some of the components don't require all those things. For example, a normal xfce desktop will include gvfs and gvfs-daemons. The latter requires libsystemd0, but the rest of xfce does not. If all those items were installed under a metapackage, then removing any part will remove them all.

You might get away with just 'apt-get remove task-xfce-desktop'. But things might get marked for autoremoval. The ones you want to keep can be installed (or reinstalled?) manually, before they are removed. (it's either apt-get install <package> or apt-get --reinstall install <package>). The package will be marked as manually installed, and it wil bel un-marked for autoremoval.

It's not clear to me what you're doing in the above. I don't use guided partitioning, but I thought it was not possible to change the settings that the partitioner uses. That's what manual partiioning is for. You should be able to make  /boot and / partitions without encryption. I know I did it with the beta1, but I haven't tried it with the beta2.

250mb for /boot should be more than enough unless you're planning to do something unusual.

Wow. I read the article. That's a lot to digest. I've been using firejail for a few months, but just with the default settings. I also tried it with firetools, a graphical front end, but I didn't like it. Couldn't figure out how to edit the menu to show just the apps I wanted to use. So I wrote my own front end.

firemenu is a bash script that uses yad for a graphical front end. It presents a list of applications that have firejail profiles, and you can filter the list to just show the apps you normally use.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/refrac … nu-1.2.deb
https://github.com/fsmithred/firemenu

I see it, too. It's a gtk-3 issue. Yad-0.37 (from ascii) uses gtk-3. I guess it automatically highlights the first choice. I can reverse the order of fs types in the script.

@dzz:
I announced a devuan-based refracta release on Oct. 30, 2015. Before that, there was a Refracta with xfce based on systemd-free debian jessie that you put together while I was stalling. Before that was a systemd-free debian-based refracta with openbox that would not have happened without your help. You were the trailblazer in those interesting times.

I don't know the timelines on the other devuan derivatives, but I am glad that we all exist, and I think it's good that we have this place to meet and compare notes.