That's really weird. I've installed refractasnapshot in beowulf a few times. And isolinux is a real package.

$ apt-cache policy isolinux
isolinux:
  Installed: 3:6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-1
  Candidate: 3:6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-1
  Version table:
 *** 3:6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Make sure you have all three lines in /etc/apt/sources.list and run 'apt update'

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf main
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates main
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security main

If that isn't the problem, try installing syslinux and isolinux first, then install refractasnapshot.

I burned the 3/25 iso to dvd, booted and got the udev warning. Pressing alt-F2 does nothing. Really nothing. I can't change to another tty. Pressinc ctrl-c seems to stop the warnings.

On another machine, I booted from a usb that has a regular install from a netinstall iso on it. When I got to the desktop, the keyboard was not working. Unplug/replug the keyboard fixed it.

Update: boot dvd on laptop, keyboard doesn't work, trackpad and trackpoint don't work. Can't unplug them.

I've been informed that when you get these repeating messages, you can make them stop by switching to tty2 and then back to tty1.

Press
alt-F2 and then alt-F1

It's normal for everything to be upgraded when you dist-upgrade from one major release to the next. It's also normal for there to be some new packages. That happens because package dependencies or priorities sometime change, or a source package that creates several binaries might get split up differently, and you'll get new names. (e.g. cryptsetup-run is a new one)

You should update again after installing a new keyring. I didn't think it worked without doing that.

I made another desktop-live iso with changes that I hope will address the udev delays. If anyone who was getting messages like the one below could test the new iso, it would be a big help. Thanks.

https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … p-live.iso

sha256sum
822ed7c7d3c456e60ba4041e8b2d43891c6853739b5fdcb16527eb041dbfe21e  devuan_beowulf_3.0.0_beta_2020-03-25_amd64_desktop-live.iso

You should be able to boot the dvd, go into rescue mode, get a network connection and install grub-efi-amd64. You don't need the -signed version unless you're using secure boot.

All the installation media (including desktop-live) boot with grub on uefi and boot with isolinux on bios. If you can't tell the difference by looking at them, you can test:
Press TAB to edit the boot command in isolinux.
Press e to edit the boot command in grub.
Press ESC to return to the boot menu - this one is the same for both.

If you're already booted into the system, check to see if /sys/firmware/efi exists. If it does, you booted in uefi mode.

Gparted leaves 1MB free at the beginning by default. If that's not there, it could be the reason for grub failing. Open gparted in the live session to check that it's there.

The log is in the user's home directory on the hard disk.

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
less /mnt/devuan/refractainstaller.log

Is there something unusual about your setup? How did you partition the drive? Gparted? Something else? Is there 1MB free space before the first partition? Does it use gpt partition table? What's in the log around the grub-install command?

It sounds like you made the right choices for a legacy bios system with msdos partition table. The right place to put the bootloader is /dev/sda, so it should have worked.

What error message did you get? You can check the installation log by booting the live media, mounting the home partition and getting refractainstaller.log from the user's home. The grub section should be about three-quarters of the way down the log. Look for an error message about grub.

The other way to do the install would be to install the grub-pc package before running refractainstaller, but do not let it install the bootloader at that time.  Run dpkg -i /grub-pc*.deb

After installing the package, you can install the system to hard disk, and you will be given a choice of where to put the bootloader. Choose MBR of /dev/sda. When the installer gets to the grub section, you will see a button that says 'Install bootloader' in the same place where you saw 'Copy files' the first time.

I don't see any problems with the hard disk.

Run the head command again, but try '-n 2000'

See if you can get a few lines beyond the point where xorriso runs. (about 20 lines past it should be enough) Look for something like this to find it:

xorriso : UPDATE :  0.23% done
xorriso : UPDATE :  3.28% done
xorriso : UPDATE :  11.45% done
xorriso : UPDATE :  19.93% done, estimate finish Wed Dec 25 22:11:41 2019
xorriso : UPDATE :  28.85% done, estimate finish Wed Dec 25 22:11:40 2019
xorriso : UPDATE :  34.11% done, estimate finish Wed Dec 25 22:11:41 2019
xorriso : UPDATE :  36.97% done, estimate finish Wed Dec 25 22:11:42 2019
xorriso : UPDATE :  40.51% done, estimate finish Wed Dec 25 22:11:44 2019

I have no idea how you managed to get an 18GB log file. Try this...

head -n 1000 /var/log/refractasnapshot.log > beginning.txt
tail -n 1000 /var/log/refractasnapshot.log > end.txt

That will put the first 1000 lines and last 1000 lines into text files.
Then try opening them with a text editor and see what's there.

That site isn't working for me. If I turn off noscript and allow all cookies, I see the name of a video file. I don't see a text file.