Last I checked, the man page for apt says not to use it in scripts. I don't know what bad things might happen if you do.

I got rid of the cron job and set up apt to update the cache once a day.

To do that, put this line in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic. ("1" is once a day, "2" is every other day, etc.)

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";

See /usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily for other options you can add to that file if you want to change from the default settings. (I don't know why it has that name.)

That said, I agree that it makes sense for the script to initiate the update. (Or for a postinstall script to make the change to apt.)

@miyo:
In beowulf, /lib/live/mount has changed to /run/live/medium

Pan, look in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults and uncomment the dirs you want.

Root's path in ascii and jessie was this. If you don't have anything in /usr/local/ the path you're using is fine.

/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

I added the following line to /root/.bashrc and now I can get root with 'su' and still run commands in *sbin and still open graphical apps on user desktop and still be in the same directory. I don't know the reason they changed it, but it certainly got in the way of my workflow.

export PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

Yes, please do use it. I tried putting the list in the notification that the python script uses, but it wanted to list all the updates on one line, so most of them were not visible. (That was down around line 88, change  c['message'], to c['check'],)

You don't need to add "The following updates are available" because there's a title in the notification window that says "Updates Available" (You could edit that message in the python script.

Try 480 and let us know what happens. Another way to do it would be to set apt to update periodically, but I'm not sure if that still works.

Hey dude, welcome back. I made some isos back in October that still fit on a CD. Updates since then bloated the system enough to push it up over the threshold.

No usb where you are? Can we find you a 21st century computer and a 1G usb stick? (I'm guessing we can't find the latter - they're all 8G and up now.)  Seriously, if you really need the smaller iso, I'll figure out how to get it to you. Or, if you wait a little while, there might be a preview beowulf iso.

Or else install libpam-elogind as a replacement for libpam-systemd.

I installed from your first zip. I saw the icon and clicked on it, but it just disappeared. Made the changes you suggested and I'm waiting to see that icon again. Anyway, I have a question and a comment.

How/where is 'apt-get update' happening?

This code won't work with a devuan-live (or with most debian-live derivatives):

# Do not run in a LiveCD session
import os.path
import sys
if os.path.exists('/etc/pointlinux-installer/install.conf'):
    print "Can't run in a LiveCD session!"
    sys.exit()

This would probably work better:

# Do not run in a LiveCD session
import os.path
import sys
if os.path.exists('/lib/live/mount/medium'):
    print "Can't run in a LiveCD session!"
    sys.exit()

Note: It will still work in a live session with persistence, because in that case, the path would be '/lib/live/mount/persistence'. If you used '/lib/live/mount' in the code, that would keep it from working in both cases (with or without persistence.)

Welcome to devuan. If you found "no-install-recommends" on your first day, you will do fine here.

I know there's an issue with grub-install in uefi with the signed bootloader. You get EFI/devuan on the efi partition, but the bootloader looks for EFI/debian, and you end up with a grub promp instead of a boot menu. I don't understand what you did when you booted with the installer and fixed it.

The fixes I know about are to either remove grub-efi-amd64-signed and run 'grub-install' and 'update-grub' or else run 'grub-install --bootloader-id=debian' and then 'update-grub'.

When I boot from a virtual hard drive in vbox, it brings me to UEFI Interactive Shell. At the prompt, I type 'exit' and it gives me a menu. I select 'Boot maintenance manager' and then in the next menu select 'Boot from file'. This gives me a directory tree showing the EFI directory. I can drill down until I see grubx64.efi and choose that file. Then it boots. There's no typing involved, but it's still annoying to go through all of that.

When I boot from a uefi-compatible live-iso, it boots correctly.

Sorry I don't have a better answer.

Get package name, version, archive

aptitude search ~i -F"%p# %v# %t#"

If you check just the first box, you should get xfce, because it's the first of the three desktops recommended by task-desktop.

If you check just the xfce box, you'll get task-desktop because xfce depends on it.

So, checking first box only, second box only, or first and second box should all give the same result. (I haven't tested this.)

$ apt-cache depends task-desktop
task-desktop
  Depends: tasksel
  Depends: xorg
  Depends: xserver-xorg-video-all
  Depends: xserver-xorg-input-all
  Depends: desktop-base
 |Recommends: task-xfce-desktop
 |Recommends: task-lxde-desktop
  Recommends: task-mate-desktop
  Recommends: xdg-utils
  Recommends: avahi-daemon
    avahi-daemon:i386
  Recommends: libnss-mdns
  Recommends: anacron
    systemd-cron
  Recommends: eject
    eject:i386
  Recommends: iw
    iw:i386
  Recommends: alsa-utils
    alsa-utils:i386

$ apt-cache depends task-xfce-desktop
task-xfce-desktop
  Depends: tasksel
  Depends: task-desktop
  Depends: xfce4
  Depends: slim
  Recommends: xfce4-goodies
  Recommends: xfce4-power-manager
  Recommends: xfce4-mixer
  Recommends: xfce4-terminal
  Recommends: mousepad
  Recommends: orage
  Recommends: libreoffice-gtk
  Recommends: dbus-x11
    dbus-x11:i386
  Recommends: xsane
    xsane:i386
  Recommends: vlc
  Recommends: quodlibet
 |Recommends: evince-gtk
  Recommends: evince
  Recommends: tango-icon-theme
  Recommends: wicd
  Recommends: synaptic
  Recommends: iceweasel
  Recommends: libreoffice
  Recommends: libreoffice-help-en-us
  Recommends: mythes-en-us
  Recommends: hunspell-en-us
  Recommends: hyphen-en-us
  Recommends: system-config-printer
  Recommends: gnome-orca