Seems you are unaware of the significance of Beowulf.  It was a bloody mess.   Devuan is different.  Maybe when you're no longer a self-proclaimed  noob, you will be better able to appreciate that difference.  If you want mainstream, you certainly have plenty of options.

Just who is the "we" that you propose should undertake this enormous task?  "We" are overworked and understaffed and our mission is to deal with systemd encroachments not everyone's personal wish list.  File a "bug" upstream with Xfce for starts.

What a great, in-depth review!  Well done, Ozi!

@user . . . thanks for the suggestions.  beta.devuan.org is the updated site that will be released with Beowulf 3.0.0.  So that is the site you should be proofing for errors and/or using if you are testing Beowulf.

That page no longer exists on the beta site.  It has been replaced with a link to this page on the dev1galaxy forum.

That's an interesting suggestion but perhaps not necessary as the web source is in devuan's git and anyone can open an issue there.   Devuan's irc channels #devuan-www and #devuan-dev are also good places to catch someone.

Might be helpful to have the exact filename of the iso you tried to install.

@swanson . . . You might also want to have a look at the documentation on the beta website in case you have need to do a similar migration.

@Mercurius . . . You didn't say which mirror you would like to host so posting both:
iso mirror setup
package mirror setup

Can't you change that in your profile?  If not, fsmithred or I could do it.

It already is in a "normal" installation:
https://beta.devuan.org/os/packages

Not exactly . . .

This from https://beta.devuan.org/os/packages :
Devuan package repositories are exclusive. Other repositories, including Debian, Ubuntu, Mint etc, should NOT be used directly.

Your interpretation of what constitutes a Debian repository could lead to a Frankendevuan!  FWIW, debmultimedia has always been a risky adventure.  If you decide to go there check the package carefully and remember that you added a non-native package when the devuan version arrives.

HoaS is an easy wind-up. 

Actually I suspect that this is the tip of the iceberg.

Used to be that the "wontfix" issues were listed on their stats page.  That went away a year or more ago.  No telling what's buried in there that will come to bite us.

@Roger . . . Thanks for doing that.  One question . . . did you install the incompatible driver from the Devuan repos, Debian repos directly of from nVidia?  That might be a factor is why the old driver was not found.  I'm not quite sure where/what his script checks.  Or perhaps there was an instruction somewhere to remove the current driver before proceeding.  I really can't remember the process.  It was so long ago.