I've just done another upgrade from LMDE3 (stretch) with sysv installed, to Beowulf.
Not without first removing the desktop and xorg so around 300 packages remained. Left mint artwork installed, hoping it would become default when installing desktop after upgrade.
Mint artwork upgrade kept complaining, and every time I tried to fix it, something else got fixed. By the time I realised mint-artwork was complaining about no g-knob to hang off, not pinned legacy artwork, the 5 upgrade cycles had fixed all the longin-d console-c**t system-D*** wafflewamble for me.

When LMDE was created, everything was installed with recommends and set to manual. Only by completely removing and reinstalling, can the true svelt be achieved.

Cribbed off of https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse

source-directory /etc/network/interfaces.d

#
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

#
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wpa-ssid ***************
        wpa-psk ********************************************************

I've had them actually running deadbeef, playing music, using less than 100MB ram with a desktop!

Also fits on and runs on 2GiB ssd eee pc 2G surf, but needs to go on a 4G for distribution upgrades, unless upgrading packages one at a time.

Maybe I should ask the mate desktop user group on facebook?

[playlist]
NumberOfEntries=51
1=Survivor_Eye of the tiger.ogg
2=Evanescence - Bring Me To Life (Album Version).ogg
3=all about eve-keepsakes cd1/18 what kind of fool 2006.mp3
4=Beatles vs GNR - Sgt Pepper's Paradise (Extended Edition).mp3
5=Avril Lavigne - Complicated.ogg
6=jane's addiction - jane says.ogg
7=The Chaos Engine - Nerve Opera.ogg
8=sonic youth - Kissability.mp3
9=celldweller - the last firstborn.ogg
10=brian adams - Heaven.ogg
11=Evanescence - Going Under (Album Version).ogg
12=Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal.ogg
13=Faith No More - From Out of Nowhere.ogg
14=nada surf - popular.mp3
15=Mean Mary - Iron Horse.mp3
16=Avril Lavigne - Sk8er Boi.ogg
17=Garbage - Only Happy When it Rains.ogg
18=Jane's Addiction - No One's Leaving.ogg
19=appetite for destruction/welcome to the jungle.ogg
20=NIN/pretty hate machine/Head Like A Hole.ogg
21=brian adams - Summer Of '69.ogg
22=No Doubt - Don't Speak (Album Version).ogg
23=snuff (snuff said) - i think we're alone now.mp3
24=Sean Paul - Uptown Haters Skit.ogg
25=Praga Khan - Injected with a Poison [Digital Orgasm Radio Mix].ogg
26=appetite for destruction/paradise city.ogg
27=The Cult - Love - She Sells Sanctuary.flac
28=Skunk Anansie - Weak.ogg
29=New Model Army - I Love The World.ogg
30=placebo - johnny & mary (robert palmer).mp3
31=nevermind/(Nirvana) - Lithium.ogg
32=mia - pull_up_the_people.ogg
33=sonic youth - (i got a) catholic block.mp3
34=Avril Lavigne - I'm With You.ogg
35=sonic youth - schizophrenia.mp3
36=Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night-.ogg
37=big black - colombian necktie.ogg
38=Fields of the Nephilim-Dawnrazor-Reanimator.ogg
39=mega city four - miles apart.mp3
40=Rekindle - Ice Skating Girl.ogg
41=That Petrol Emotion - The Peel Sessions/Lettuce.mp3
42=celldweller - switchback.ogg
43=Apollo 440 - Aint Talkin bout Dub.mp3
44=Shakira - Whenever, Wherever.ogg
45=slayer - raining blood.ogg
46=Pop Will Eat Itself - Inside You.ogg
47=Bauhaus - Ziggy Stardust.mp3
48=The Wedding Present - Shatner.ogg
49=Made In Japan [1972] Deep Purple - Highway Star.mp3
50=Hawkwind Live Seventy Nine/Master of the Universe.mp3
51=brian adams - Run To You.ogg

Cost less than $20 each on ebay and the earlier ones have really good sound cards, being unable to compete with apple on anything else at the time.
If you have six, that's 18hrs  battery!

*Its an epic.

If it's any help, I made the mistake of netinstalling 3.1 instead of 3.0 yesterday. In 3.1 the audio settings persistence is even worse, it doesn't save volume setting!
In my humble opinion, devuan brain central needs to have a good look at this area, it appears to be loosing settings at a rate of one per release.
ASCII was fine on audio but not great on power manager notification icons.

I noticed systemd launching an alsa-restore service on LMDE3 yesterday, if that helps?

I'm using lightdm with slick greeter in Debbowulf. Seems to work ok though I notice the login screen shows when shutting down under sysv, which is wasn't doing under systemd in LMDE2 and 3 before the upgrade to Debbie/Beowulf

Thank you, I will, and may I ask why?
There appears to be no difference in relevant packages, I simply cannot fathom where the error lies.
If it was the config files that come with devuan's pulse or mate, then would these not have broken the upgraded version, debbowulf? Debian netinst converted to Beowulf does not have the bug. Antix doesn't have the bug. Even Ascii doesn't have the bug!

Cheers, but the thing is, I can get the mate desktop idling at around 100MB and it looks fine with little effort. My interest in the slower machines is purely about battery life. with six batteries, 4 hrs each headless, that's a whole day. With the desktop it's 3.5 hrs each.