I think the number in "udevd[*number*]" is the PID of the udevd task. Run ps -ef | grep udev and see if the PID matches.

On my system /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf contains

install nvidia modprobe -i nvidia-current $CMDLINE_OPTS

install nvidia-modeset modprobe nvidia ; modprobe -i nvidia-current-modeset $CMDLINE_OPTS

install nvidia-drm modprobe nvidia-current-modeset ; modprobe -i nvidia-current-drm $CMDLINE_OPTS

install nvidia-uvm modprobe nvidia ; modprobe -i nvidia-current-uvm $CMDLINE_OPTS

remove nvidia modprobe -r -i nvidia-drm nvidia-modeset nvidia-uvm nvidia

# These aliases are defined in *all* nvidia modules.
# Duplicating them here sets higher precedence and ensures the selected
# module gets loaded instead of a random first match if more than one
# version is installed. See #798207.
alias   pci:v000010DEd00000E00sv*sd*bc04sc80i00*        nvidia
alias   pci:v000010DEd00000AA3sv*sd*bc0Bsc40i00*        nvidia
alias   pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc02i00*               nvidia
alias   pci:v000010DEd*sv*sd*bc03sc00i00*               nvidia

But I've not rebooted it for a while and I can't remember if I got that message when I did.

Chris

You can set up entries in /etc/sudoers to let members of a given group (or specific individuals) run specific commands via sudo without asking for a password. See the man page for sudoers for examples (and caveats).

Note that it's often safer to let them run a script you've written as root since the script can do any necessary checks before doing anything dangerous.

Chris

Also run the dist-upgrade with --simulate first (this tell you what it will do but does not do anything).

Chris

I would advise you to truncate  /usr/lib/cups/notifier/error_log if it's getting too big:
>  /usr/lib/cups/notifier/error_log

rm will remove the directory entry, but won't free space if something still has the file open. You might be able to find it by looking in /proc (it will be in a directory of the PID of the task that has it open) and truncate it there. Otherwise restarting the task(s) will free the space (if all else fails a reboot restarts everything).

Chris

PS. I learnt that in the college of hard knocks.

The ? means that polkitd isn't attached to a terminal. ps aux gives more information:

chris@rigel:~/bin$ ps aux | grep polkit
chris      360  0.0  0.0  12784   972 pts/2    S+   17:25   0:00 grep polkit
root      2787  0.0  0.1 297264  6992 ?        Sl    2018   0:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd --no-debug

chris@rigel:~/bin$ ps aux | head -3
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root         1  0.0  0.0  15812  1628 ?        Ss    2018   2:25 init [2]
root         2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S     2018   0:05 [kthreadd]

The second command is just to show the column headings. The first column shows polkit runs as root which is why you need ps ax to show it.

Chris

If you need to ask questions like that the three safest options are:

1: Keep it all in your head. And only discuss it face to face when safe from listening devices.

2: Only use pencil and paper etc, not computers.

3: Only use computers that are never connected to the internet at all. And be very careful if you need to copy data from the internet onto them, eg burn it to CD/DVD on an internet connected system, read it on the safe system, then destroy the disk to ensure data can't ever get out.

And think carefully about the threat model if you need to resort to any of the above options.

Chris

If you have more than 1 system try ping, ssh, etc from another system to see if the hung system responds.

Does pressing caps/num/shift lock turn on the light on the keyboard?

Do any of the lights on the motherboard or NIC show anything significant (if the light's usually on when it's working and off when it's sleeping what does it show when the systems hung?)

Chris

Pressing control-S just after the messages come out might enable you to read them (then control-Q to continue).

If that fails could you take a video of the console during shutdown, then play it back slowly?

Chris

Hello,

I had a lot of "fun" getting CUDA working under Devuan. See the following threads for details:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2299
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2259

And search the forum for keywords like CUDA, Nvidia, nouveau, etc.

Chris

ESR is one of the better known figures in the UNIX world. You can read most of his writings at http://www.catb.org/~esr/ (several are well worth reading).

He made several good points about how to make Devuan easier to install. In particular having one and only one installer per architecture that then asks what sort of install you want to do and if you want to install non-free code. If you must keep old versions available then clearly label them as deprecated (and don't put them on the home page).

He could have been a bit more tactful but that's no reason to reject everything he said.

A magazine cover disk may need to be more specialized since space is limited (they may want to have more than 1 distro on a single DVD) and it should be usable to install on a system that does not have internet access. But the people building the cover disk should be more experienced than the average user.

Chris

For messages coming out during the bootup try control-s to freeze screen output and control-q to restart it. That should stop them long enough to copy them down (or take a photo of the screen).

Chris

Check what /etc/nsswitch.conf says for hosts (see the man page for nsswitch.conf for what it means).
Check /etc/resolv.conf (that tells the system which DNS server(s) to use).

If there is more than 1 DNS server in there try commenting out all but one and checking if it works with that one.
If there is only one them comment it out and add nameserver 8.8.8.8 (that's google's nameserver).

Chris