My test results:

1st attempt
===========

Version: refracta10-beta2_xfce_amd64-20200425_1600.iso

Error messages:

WARNING: Device /dev/loop0 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda1 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda2 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.

...and so on.

I didn't know what to do about it, so I just waited to see what would happen. After a long wait, the boot process eventually "died" and I thought the system had frozen. I pressed the "Enter" key to see if anything would happen, and I was presented with a working command prompt.

2nd attempt
===========

Version: refracta10-beta2_xfce_i386-20200425_1631.iso

As before, error messages:

WARNING: Device /dev/loop0 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.

I pressed Ctrl-C and the boot process continued. Eventually I was presented with an Xfce desktop. The mouse was unresponsive, so I tried pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete and Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. Nothing happened. However, the system wasn't totally locked up because the clock was working.

Phil

I looked around quite a bit and didn't see any instructions anywhere on how to verify the downloads using the SHA256SUMS.txt.asc file. Such instructions (or a pointer to where they are located) would be very helpful.

Phil

Devuan ASCII has the same problem. I encountered it last year.

See: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=14632#p14632

Phil

I am using NoScript (v. 5.1.9) on Palemoon. Palemoon tries to dissuade people from installing NoScript, but you can safely ignore the warning and install it anyway. NoScript seems to work just fine on Palemoon.

Phil

This looks quite interesting:

https://www.hyperbola.info/
https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=:en:start
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distr … =hyperbola

I learned about it yesterday.

Phil

It doesn't matter because the OP didn't mention that as a requirement; he or she requires support for the old type of Firefox extensions. If someone also wants support for Widevine, then I recommend using Chromium, or a web browser based on Chromium such as Google Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, etc. After all, there's nothing stopping anyone from having more than one web browser.

Phil

For comparison sake, and to give you some additional information, I am using Devuan ASCII and didn't have any problems installing WINE when I followed the Debian wiki. I also don't have any elogind packages installed. And now your experience has me wondering if there's been a big change between ASCII and Beowulf.

Phil

That is correct.

Phil

Here's mine:

# grep -R . /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Mitigation: Full generic retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spec_store_bypass:Vulnerable
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/mds:Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT disabled
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/l1tf:Mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: EPT disabled
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Mitigation: PTI

Doesn't look good.

Phil

I use an MX repo for one package by using apt-pinning.

/etc/apt/preferences.d/mxrepo-pinning :

Package: adobe-flashplugin
Pin: origin "mxrepo.com"
Pin-Priority: 100

Package: *
Pin: origin "mxrepo.com"
Pin-Priority: 50

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx-17.list :

# MX Community Main and Test Repos

deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ stretch non-free main

#deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/testrepo/ stretch test

Download the repo keyring and install it:

wget http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/m/mx-archive-keyring/mx-archive-keyring_2018.2mx17_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i mx-archive-keyring_2018.2mx17_all.deb

Phil

My results:

$ apt policy firefox-esr
firefox-esr:
  Installed: 60.7.2esr-1~deb9u1
  Candidate: 60.7.2esr-1~deb9u1
  Version table:
 *** 60.7.2esr-1~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-security/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     60.6.3esr-1~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-updates/main i386 Packages
     60.6.1esr-1~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/main i386 Packages

Debian Stretch version: 60.8.0esr-1~deb9u1

Phil

This info may help:

SSD’s, Journaling, and noatime/relatime
https://tytso.livejournal.com/61830.html

Improving the Resilience of HDDs & Ext4
https://myles.sh/improving-the-resilience-of-your-hdds/
[Especially the section on tuning ext4.]

Phil