I fixed the broken link. Here's the right one.

https://git.devuan.org/devuan/documenta … ackgrounds

ps_mem.py shows:

# old thinkpad with 8G ram running daedalus, xfce
7.1 MiB +   1.1 MiB =   8.2 MiB	        NetworkManager
15.4 MiB +   3.2 MiB =  18.6 MiB	nm-applet

# satellite with 8G ram running excalibur, xfce
 17.5 MiB +   1.4 MiB =  18.9 MiB	wicd
 24.9 MiB +   3.7 MiB =  28.6 MiB	wicd-client

# newer old thinkpad with 8G ram running excalibur, lxqt
  8.0 MiB + 814.5 KiB =   8.8 MiB	NetworkManager
 11.1 MiB +   4.3 MiB =  15.5 MiB	nm-tray

I thought you need to have the right package, grub-pc or grub-efi-amd64 to install the bootloader correctly, so I always make sure I have the right one before any grub-install happens. Two days ago, I did a bios install with grub-efi-amd64 installed and I rebooted to a grub rescue prompt. But that was with a misconfigured calamares, so maybe it doesn't count.

Looking at the files that grub-efi-amd64 provides, I have no idea what it does. Looks like nothing. The script gathers information for a bug report.

$ apt-file list grub-efi-amd64
grub-efi-amd64: /usr/share/bug/grub-efi-amd64/presubj
grub-efi-amd64: /usr/share/bug/grub-efi-amd64/script
grub-efi-amd64: /usr/share/doc/grub-efi-amd64

You're right. I just checked a beowulf live-iso and wicd disconnects the active connection before it completes the new connection. That's consistent when going from wired to wireless and from wireless to wired.

I did the test with two routers in the house to see if I could be connected to two different networks. I can't do that with wicd. I can do it with network-manager - I could ping both routers. Maybe I'll make a wishlist bug report for that some time. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to seeing more test reports from people.

"Try it, you'll like it."

@rations:

Yesterday I tried again using your modules and configs instead of my minimally edited debian files. It works. (replaced the user with what was entered in the installer)

One point (not the only) that I'm confused about is grub. I changed one line in the bootloader module so that it would boot efi or bios, and I'm wondering how it does that. Is a network connection required for that to succeed? My iso has grub-efi-amd64 installed, but I did a bios install and it got grub-pc from somewhere. (either network or it found the deb package that I put in the root of the squashed filesystem)

I'm going to keep playing with this, but it's probably going to go slowly. I have too much other stuff to do. Thanks for this contribution. I now have less hate for calamares. Maybe there can eventually be a calamares-settings-devuan package.

Google tells me that cpu is in the i7 family. You should be able to run devuan on that with no problems. If it only has 4G ram, choose lxde, mate or xfce or any window manager. Just don't open too many tabs on your web browser.

I have devuan on a machine with 4G and Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU  J1900  @ 1.99GHz. It's slow, but it works. I used that machine to install each devuan desktop environment in a qemu VM to compare their memory use. Here are the screenshots: https://git.devuan.org/fsmithred/screenshots

I use this interactive script so I don't have to type as much. Run it from the directory that contains the iso files. Code is mostly lifted from refracta2usb which can make a multi-boot live-usb and is a lot bigger than this.

You need hwinfo and pv installed for this to work.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# iso2usb.sh
#set -x
#
# Run this script from the directory that contains your .iso files.
#

blocksize="1M"

[[ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]] || { echo -e "\n\t You need to be root!\n" ; exit 1 ; }

usbdevlist=$(/usr/sbin/hwinfo --usb --short | awk '/dev\/sd/ {print $1}')
usbdevfulllist=$(/usr/sbin/hwinfo --usb --short | awk '/dev\/sd/ {print $0}')

	echo -e "\n\tLIST OF REMOVABLE DRIVES\n${usbdevfulllist}\n${sdfulllist}\n${cdromfulllist}\n\nSelect a device:"
	select opt in $usbdevlist ; do
		device=$(echo "$opt" | awk '{ print $1 }')
		break
	done

if [[ -z "$device" ]] ; then
	echo "No device was found."
	exit 0
fi

echo -e "\n\tSelect the image file.\n"
select file in *.iso *.img ; do
	echo -e "\n$file"
	break
done

size=$(ls -lh $file | awk '{ print $5 }' | sed -e 's/M//')

if echo "$size" | grep -q G ; then
	size="$(echo "$size" | sed -e 's/\.//' -e 's/G//')00"
fi

echo "Size is ${size}M"

if echo "$size" | grep -q K ; then
	echo "Out of range units"
	exit 1
fi

echo -e "\n\tCopy $file to $device?\n\n\tThe command will be:\n\tdd if=$file | pv -s ${size}M | dd of=$device bs=${blocksize}\n\n"
echo -e " Press ENTER to continue or ctrl-c to abort."
read -p " "

dd if="$file" | pv -s ${size}M | dd of="$device" bs="$blocksize"
sync

exit 0

If you don't need proprietary firmware, you can use the linux-libre kernel:
https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/l … sh.en.html

You can install that in a daedalus system and upgrade to excalibur, or upgrade first then install the new kernel.
You could instead create a new excalibur system in a chroot, install linux-libre and then convert it to a disk image.

Here's an old discussion on installing devuan without dbus. Most of it still applies.
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2158

The only nodbus iso I have available right now is the 32-bit refracta_13 (excalibur)
https://get.refracta.org/files/excalibu … 5_1239.iso

I put that on my 32-bit netbook and ended up adding dbus so I could install something. Poking around now, it looks like that something included audacious, abiword, firefox-esr, and yeah now I remember the real kicker - spacefm.    Relevant to the OP, I like to use spacefm with pmount for mounting removable disks.

@rations:  If you get calamares working, I'd like to know how to do it so I can try it again. Thanks.

Re: Simple Distro Kit - the SDK is for building the iso. Included in the iso is refractainstaller. Unlike refractasnapshot, which copies the running system to turn it into an iso file, SDK pulls packages from the repo and makes the iso. The difference is that the system made by SDK has never been booted.

Calamares and I had disagreements about my partitioning scheme.
Last time I tried it, it needed around 125mb of software to work. That was a few years ago.

I've never had to load any extra modules on an expert install. I see that screen and just OK it without selecting anything, and I always have the full selection of filesystem types. If just looking at that screen is enough, then I guess the instructions would be "Don't skip any sections or you'll be missing stuff."

Check the sha256sum on the iso to make sure it didn't get corrupted on download.

Update: The item is called "Load installer components from installation media" and it does load stuff you need even if you don't check any of the boxes. So I guess the advice would be "Load installer components if you want to install the system." And I think I might feel insulted if it said that.

Edit2: I just want to add that manual partitioning is available in both expert and regular install. I've noticed that some people think you have to choose expert to do manual partritioning. You don't.