Well said! I'm totally sold on the advantages of free software (my laptop only runs software from the main repository, has libreboot instead of BIOS, and router runs LibreCMC) but I have to concede that Debian/Devuan's compromise makes more sense (for reason above) than completely eliminating the contrib and non-free repositories just to get an endorsement from the FSF.

By the way, a major reason why many people need proprietary firmware is for wifi. However, it is simple to swap a laptop's free software-unfriendly wireless card (e.g., Intel cards requiring firmware-iwlwifi) for one that is freedom-friendly such as the Penguin Wireless N half height mini PCIe card (available here), which uses the ath9k* module. I've done this swap many times and it's very easy--equivalent to a RAM upgrade except that there are more screws to remove and put back. The only thing to do after the swap is to uninstall the non-free wireless firmware you were using before, since you don't need it anymore

* ath9k is free software and therefore comes baked-in with Devuan's default kernel as well as with the more strict linux-libre kernel.

lazlo: You nailed it!

0. I plugged in a thumbdrive that caja wasn't automatically opening, then...
1.

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

2.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb

3. I went into GParted and when I chose sdb it complained about there being no partition table--presumably because it was overwritten with zeros by the dd command--so I went ahead and created an msdos partition table.
4. Still in GParted, I created an sdb1 partition with fat32 filesystem.

Then I removed the thumbdrive and plugged it back in, and... CAJA AUTOMATICALLY OPENED IT!

I tried cheating with a different thumbdrive, hoping that skipping the time-consuming dd step and going straight to creating a new partition table would be enough, but no luck with that.

While I will continue to wonder where exactly was the problem, thanks to you we have a fix. Thanks a lot! This has bothered me for a long time, since long before Devuan.

Me, too. Very mysterious behavior, to be sure.

I'll keep at it when I have time, and will post any new insights here.

@greenjeans: I tried adding "inode/directory=caja-folder-handler.desktop" and no joy. I also tried "inode/directory=caja.desktop" just for kicks and no luck either.

@lazlo: Good ideas. I tried the same USB drives in Debian 8 and got same results (some auto-open and others don't), so I don't think this is systemd-related. Also, I always unmount the drives before attempting to reformat in GParted (besides, I think GParted would refuse to format a drive that's mounted).

I'm sure that some subtle difference between a thumbdrive from factory vs. one formatted in GParted is to blame for this...

P.S. Sorry for making a big deal out of such a minor issue. It's just that Devuan works so well that at this point this is the only thing about my system that bothers me

Thanks, greenjeans. Caja's "Browse media when inserted" is already checked.

Maybe formatting in GParted causes the thumbdrive's x-content to change? How do I check its current x-content and, if applicable, change it to something that will continue to trigger Automount-open?

BTW, don't worry too much about style at first. Just get the scripts to work. As you learn better ways of doing things, you can edit your scripts to make them prettier and more robust. This is called "refactoring" and is a good practice.

Bummer. Your issue is not lack of sse2 support. I'm afraid I don't know Firefox well enough to know why recent versions are crashing on your machine. I tested both AppImages (52 and 53) and they run okay on my Devuan Jessie 64bit with the default 3.16 kernel.

All I can say for sure is that lately Firefox has been aggressively breaking compatibility (e.g., 52 and up require pulseaudio, 53 and up require sse2). I'd consider not playing their little game and going with a conservative alternative such as Palemoon.

@hughparker1: Three separate issues going on.

1.

zenity, kdialog, Xdialog missing. Skipping /tmp/.mount_Cdg7JV/usr/bin//firefox.wrapper.

This is benign. It just means that you don't have zenity, kdialog, or Xdialog installed--the AppImage requires one of these to be present in order to show a dialog asking you whether you want the .desktop file to be added to your ~/.local/share/applications directory. This is the only AppImage-specific error that you are getting. After the firefox.wrapper (i.e., the .desktop integration step) is run or skipped, the Firefox53 binary inside the AppImage is executed.

2.

(firefox:7574): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

This is benign. I think it's a GTK error. I see it when I try running the AppImage, too, and then Firefox53 starts for me without any problems.

3.

ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child 7624
ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child
ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal...

This is the show stopper. It means that Firefox53 is crashing. I'm sure this will happen regardless of how you try to run Firefox53 on your system (AppImage or not). If Firefox from Devuan repository works for you but Firefox53 crashes, my guess is that you are running an older processor that, as of Firefox53, is no longer supported (see https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/5 … uirements/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments … 4_or_amd/).

Specifically, as of Firefox53, Firefox requires sse2 support in the CPU. What is the output of this command:

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -i sse2 || echo "no sse2 support"

?

If lack of sse2 is indeed your issue, then Firefox52 is the last version that will run on your machine. When the time comes, see Life after Firefox.

I had many problems with polkit (including the USB mount-unmount and "unable to determine the session" issues) when I tried running Devuan Jessie without a display manager. After many hours of troubleshooting and trial-and-error--over several days--I gave up and gave lightdm a shot.

Well, all the problems vanished once lightdm was installed. I feel mildly bad for not actually learning enough about polkit to manually fix the problems, but on the upside I got fully operational and put a stop to my headache and hair loss.

What DE and what (if any) display manager are you using? If you are not currently using a display manager, may I suggest you give lightdm a shot? If it solves your polkit-related problems, you can easily configure lightdm for autologin and it will stay completely out of your way.

A simpler way to know if it is free software or not is to discover* the software's license, then check this list: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

The intent of the software developer comes to a point in the chosen license. Software under a free license = free software.

* Hopefully the license is prominently listed on the project's website. Not finding the license on the project's website is usually a bad sign, but not always. If you can't find the license on the project's website, check Wikipedia. If Wikipedia has an article about the project, the license will be right in the infobox.

I'm not too worried. We have a critical mass of smart, freedom-loving folk in the GNU/Linux community who value traditional workflows (e.g., Devuan developers), so we'll figure something out when we get there. I myself will roll up my sleeves and figure it out if need be. Sorry I can't be more helpful at this point--I only looked into this cursorily.

I have never actually used Wayland yet. Truth is I have absolutely no complaints regarding X11, so will put off Wayland for as long as I possibly can (forever if possible).

This is wrong and it makes me angry.

Why not just scrap GNU/Linux? All the world needs is Windows, MacOS, and GNU/systemd. Even then, our overlords at Redmond, Cupertino, and Red Hat may get together and decide that with these three OSs we still have too much choice.