Most people probably will need to enable non-free in order to install one of these packages:

amd64-microcode
intel-microcode

From yesterday (I still had the terminal window open):

# apt update
Hit:1 http://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf InRelease
Hit:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates InRelease
Get:4 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security InRelease [26.5 kB]
Hit:5 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-backports InRelease
Fetched 26.5 kB in 4s (7,067 B/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.

From just a few minutes ago:

# apt update
Hit:1 http://versaweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all InRelease
Get:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf InRelease [33.8 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates InRelease [26.7 kB]
Get:4 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security InRelease [26.5 kB]
Get:5 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-backports InRelease [26.9 kB]
Get:6 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-backports/main amd64 Packages [491 kB]
Fetched 605 kB in 4s (151 kB/s)   
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
2 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.

# apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
linux-headers-amd64/oldstable-backports 5.10.92-1~bpo10+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 5.10.70-1~bpo10+1]
linux-image-amd64/oldstable-backports 5.10.92-1~bpo10+1 amd64 [upgradable from: 5.10.70-1~bpo10+1]

So, the upgrade was NOT available yesterday, but now it is.

This is the approach that I use:

df -h

That shows me my mounted drives. If I see (for example) that /dev/sdb is my "highest" drive, then I'll guess that the USB stick will be /dev/sdc.

Although my guess has usually been correct, I always verify it like this:

# fdisk -l /dev/sdc

I then look at the output of fdisk to see if the size of /dev/sdc (and other drive info) matches what I expect. It usually does, but if were to ever see something I wasn't expecting, then I would know to be extra careful before proceeding.

If I used it at all, I would only use Google Chrome in a VM. I installed it once on my main system, and noticed some odd behavior after doing so. It might have been a coincidence, but the strange behavior went away after I became suspicious and uninstalled Google Chrome, so I am inclined to believe that Google Chrome was somehow responsible.

That worked. Thanks for the prompt reply!

It seems to me that there's a simple solution that will solve this problem -- ask the user to confirm that the information obtained from os-prober is correct. Or write the info to the appropriate config file, but commented out, along with a comment above it explaining why it's commented out and the importance of verifying that the information is correct before uncommenting it.

What about a Jessie system that was upgraded to Stretch? Would the upgrade remove the working multi-boot menu?

My experience has been that VirtualBox 6.1 is messed up and doesn't work right on Beowulf. I had VMs completely lock up, multiple times. The latest version that has been working reliably for me is 6.1.22 r144080 (Qt5.6.1). And in case it matters, I am also using a kernel (and headers) from backports (on the host system). Hopefully this problem will disappear when I upgrade to Chimaera.

Just thought I'd pass along this information in case it's helpful.

I believe that MX Linux has Iridium (package name: iridium-browser). I no longer have any packages from MX Linux installed, but I did in the past. The tricky part was setting up the apt-pinning so that only the packages I wanted from MX Linux were installed, and nothing else.

Here's a start:

https://coreboot.org/status/board-status.html
https://www.mail-archive.com/coreboot@c … 38710.html

I wish I had some better suggestions for you, but I am just beginning to research this topic.

NetworkManager works fine, and I prefer it over wicd because it has plugins that make setting up and using a VPN fairly easy.

Based on the packages I have installed, I believe that this is the way I installed it:

aptitude install network-manager-gnome network-manager-openvpn-gnome

I only mention this because, based on a tutorial I saw that mentions replacing NetworkManager with wicd, it appears that some people believe that NetworkManager doesn't work in Devuan. That is not the case. Although I'm not certain about Chimaera, because I haven't used it, NetworkManager definitely works fine in Refracta/Beowulf.

Phil

I would use a window manager like fluxbox, IceWM, or JWM. Up until 2013, I used Debian with IceWM on a 300 MHz Pentium II laptop with 256 MB of RAM. It was slow (the web browser, mainly), but usable.

For the web browser I would use SeaMonkey along with NoScript "Classic" (version 5.1.x). I would also disable the ChatZilla and Lightning extensions if you aren't going to use them. Using NoScript may seem annoying and inconvenient at first, but it really helps speed up web browsing by preventing a lot of unnecessary JavaScript from running. Some websites are loaded up with so much third-party JavaScript it's ridiculous.

The best way to install SeaMonkey is to use the Ubuntuzilla repository. Despite the name, the packages are compatible with Debian and Debian derivatives.