Just to let you know that the Devuan default theme has a lightdm background.  This one is from the upcoming chimaera:

Welcome to Devuan.

I suspected that switching files out might break other things and was going to start investigating after a good night's sleep.  Looks like sgage and  fsmithred and ToZ on the Xfce forum saved me the headache. Gtk-3 is such a pox . . .

@sgage . . . does the ascii darkpurpy theme work OK on Mate?  If yes, try replacing the gtk-widgets.css, applications.css and gtk-widgets-img.css in deepsea with those from darkpurpy.  There is one color change towards the end of gtk-widgets.css that you'll want to keep from deepsea but the rest can probably fall back to the earlier gtk version.

[edit] Actually you probably need to use those files from Clearlooks-Phenix-purpy not darkpurpy.  You can find them here

@sgage . . . thanks for reporting this.  I have poked it a bit and discovered it also happens on all the clearlooks-phenix themes - including the original - on xfce beowulf too yet it works as expected on ascii even though the styling is identical.  If I can't figure it out, I will post to the xfce forum to help me sort it.  Stay tuned . . .

There is also a netboot mini.iso that might work better for you. The minimal-live is a "full-featured, console-based recovery tool with a focus on accessibility for visually-impaired and blind users".  Perhaps that is why some of the xorg stuff is not cooperating.

All the locations are described in the beowulf thread.

All the files have now been uploaded to gitea

I have been using a set of older "mist" icons but thinking I may recolor a set so stay tuned

Thanks for noticing.  berni51's timely interest in the theme was sufficient motivation for me to finally get my act together.   Also, I like to live with a theme for a while to make sure the colors are just right.  I can obsess about one increment in a hex for days!  I think that there have been 3 iterations presented in the first post.  The first 2 obviously didn't pass the long-term test. Maybe that's why you like this version better.

Just use Devuan repos until you understand what you are doing.  Trying to make it something that it is not . . . well  . . . what's the point of that exactly?

The short answer is old age.  The mental gymnastics and long hours are just too demanding.  Also am I weary of behaving for the machine and long for simpler times and the natural world (what little is left of it).

Thanks for taking the time to do that. Still a little low for me but I could get the general drift of it.  Might be my old ears.    Impressive customization! Your innovative contributions to Devuan are much appreciated.

IIRC the OPs should be able to mark their own threads as solved once the edit window has expired. That was the whole point of adding that feature. Of course, admins can see and use it too.