Good idea. That might help some people. Unfortunately, that won't work for a printer or scanner.

Since version 5.2 worked just fine on Devuan ASCII, I figured I would go back to using that version even though it's no longer supported. Imagine my surprise when I encountered the same error messages when I tried to install version 5.2 on Beowulf-based Refracta.

This was my final attempt to get VirtualBox working:

$ wget https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.18/VirtualBox-6.1.18-142142-Linux_amd64.run
$ wget https://www.virtualbox.org/download/hashes/6.1.18/SHA256SUMS
$ sha256sum VirtualBox-6.1.18-142142-Linux_amd64.run
[Then check to make sure that the sha256sum value is correct.]

$ su
[Enter root password.]

# chmod u+x VirtualBox-6.1.18-142142-Linux_amd64.run
# ./VirtualBox-6.1.18-142142-Linux_amd64.run install

I was quite surprised when those same error messages appeared again.

This is what I did to try to repair (complete) the installation:

# update-rc.d vboxdrv defaults
# rcvboxdrv setup

I then tested USB passthrough to see if it was working, and it was not. At this point I almost gave up. In fact, I did a minimal installation of QEMU and started researching the different utilities and GUI tools that are available for QEMU.

I then had a hunch that I should try rebooting the system. I didn't think it would help, but I went ahead and did it anyway. That worked -- USB passthrough is now working.

I found some evidence that this problem is back (or maybe it's a new, but related problem):

DSA-4701-1 intel-microcode -- security update
[Date Reported: 11 Jun 2020]

The update hasn't shown up for me yet, so I did some checking:

$ apt policy intel-microcode
intel-microcode:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.20200609.2~deb9u1
  Version table:
     3.20200609.2~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-security/non-free i386 Packages
     3.20191115.2~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/non-free i386 Packages

When I first looked at that, I was a little confused. And then I remembered that I am using a 64-bit kernel (it's a multi-arch system).

So I checked again:

$ apt policy intel-microcode:amd64
intel-microcode:amd64:
  Installed: 3.20191115.2~deb9u1
  Candidate: 3.20191115.2~deb9u1
  Version table:
 *** 3.20191115.2~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/non-free amd64 Packages
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-security/non-free amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Okay, so that explains (partially) why I am not seeing the update. I then wondered, "Is this a Devuan problem, or is the problem on Debian's end?" To help answer that question, I added the repository for Debian Stretch security updates.

And here's the result that gave me:

$ apt policy intel-microcode:amd64
intel-microcode:amd64:
  Installed: 3.20191115.2~deb9u1
  Candidate: 3.20200609.2~deb9u1
  Version table:
     3.20200609.2~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates/non-free amd64 Packages
 *** 3.20191115.2~deb9u1 500
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/non-free amd64 Packages
        500 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-security/non-free amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

That tells me that the problem is not on Debian's end.

Phil

The apt package in Devuan comes directly from Debian; it is an unmodified Debian package.

Phil

Yes, you are correct.

Phil

I'm subscribed to this thread, and I didn't receive any notifications regarding replies.

Phil

That just fixes the keyboard and mouse problem, right? Because I just tried it, and sound still isn't working.

Phil

That may help with some issues, but it doesn't look like it will help with the no-sound issue (for me, anyway).

Here's why:

# groupadd kvm
groupadd: group 'kvm' already exists

Phil

I migrated a new Debian Buster system to Beowulf, and things went well (for the most part). There is a problem, though. After the desktop appears, there is constant, non-stop disk activity. Running top shows a couple of CPU hogs:

udevd      20 to 30 % CPU
udisksd    14 to 20% CPU
udevd      1 to 2 % CPU

Based on a hunch, I uninstalled gvfs and the problem went away.

Phil

I found something that looks like it could be a possible solution (or workaround):

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 5#p1867015

The Gentoo wiki page that he linked to seems to have some good info (based on my limited understanding) about this problem.

Phil

My test results:

1st attempt
===========

Version: refracta10-beta2_xfce_amd64-20200425_1600.iso

Error messages:

WARNING: Device /dev/loop0 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda1 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda2 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.

...and so on.

I didn't know what to do about it, so I just waited to see what would happen. After a long wait, the boot process eventually "died" and I thought the system had frozen. I pressed the "Enter" key to see if anything would happen, and I was presented with a working command prompt.

2nd attempt
===========

Version: refracta10-beta2_xfce_i386-20200425_1631.iso

As before, error messages:

WARNING: Device /dev/loop0 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.
WARNING: Device /dev/sda not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.

I pressed Ctrl-C and the boot process continued. Eventually I was presented with an Xfce desktop. The mouse was unresponsive, so I tried pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete and Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. Nothing happened. However, the system wasn't totally locked up because the clock was working.

Phil

I looked around quite a bit and didn't see any instructions anywhere on how to verify the downloads using the SHA256SUMS.txt.asc file. Such instructions (or a pointer to where they are located) would be very helpful.

Phil

Devuan ASCII has the same problem. I encountered it last year.

See: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=14632#p14632

Phil