Oh, you were quicker than me ;-)

Hello,
yes, there is... kaiyel points to good an accurate information.
In today's times, the disks are big enough to hold most of a filesystem. But:
If you intend to separate just the /home filesystems to its own partition, do it by all means, that's a very good reason.

But, if, out of old (and good) habits you want to keep /usr separate, you have to be sure you can access enough system- and filesystem-repair binaries in the root filesystem in case of severe filesystem problems that prevent automatic mounting these other filesystems.
Therefore things like mount, fsck, ps etc have to be kept in the /bin or /sbin directory (which is in the root filesystem).
In old SysV times I have encountered funny constructions like the basic OS tools kept in the rootfilesystem/usr directory, and /usr was used as mountpoint for it's separate filesystem. If the mount is successful at boot, you have all the tools. If not, you could still try to repair with whatever tools are kept beneath the mountpoint /usr.
I know, it sounds boring these days, but it had its reasons not too long ago.
Good day to all.

Just an idea: sudo is not always the same as root.
I suggest to do a
su -
That switches your shell to the root account. Then try to change to the script directory and run it (as root user)
After the (hopefully) successful installation you just leave the root shell
Ctrl-D
And your shell will be back to your user again.
Good luck.

Now that clears it all up.
Thank you all for your hints and contributions.
Have great, but not too hot weekend

Hello,
that looks pretty cool. Can you tell us how you have achieved this?
Desktop environment, window manager, dock, what artwork?
Keep on with Devuan, it's great, really!
Greetings.

I agree, OpenRC is the logical choice:
It's easy to use,
It's very effective
It's maintainable and transparent
And, it's mostly compatible with old init scripts
I have used it from the beginning with Devuan and it never failed me.

It does one job and does it well
All this in a very true UNIX manner

Hello,
please know that dd is a disk-dumper, a block-copying program, that acts on physical devices (like disks, partitions etc). If you give a file-name as output device it will write the blocks to that file. If the output device is partition or a disk, then for heavens sake you will have the contents of that input file (the iso image) on your partition or device. Even if you manage to recover the superblock or some inodes from you original filesystem, the blocks pointed to will still contain copied blocks from your source-device (or file). The dd program starts to copy block by block, from the beginning. man dd helps....
Sorry, but reality can be hard.

Just tested the most recent installer iso:
https://files.devuan.org/devuan_chimaer … nstall.iso
(Alpha from May 3rd, 2021)
on the same Dell PC Optiplex 990 PC

- UEFI / GPT mode (with secure boot disabled of course)
- Standard Install
- Chose Cinnamon Desktop, OpenRC
--> worked very well
(had to add the non-free firmware-amd-graphics for the AMD GPU)

And once again the same with the XFCE4 Desktop.

Everything works well, though anacron still stalls the shutdown process occasionally.
I therefor just disable the service to be happy.
Thanks for that good progress you make.

Here my experiences with the new installer iso:
https://files.devuan.org/devuan_chimaera/installer-iso/

1. An old Dell PC Optiplex 780
- BIOS / MBR mode
- Expert Install (standard install didn't start)
- Chose Cinnamon Desktop, OpenRC
--> worked very well
(only had a hick-up with the keyboard selection, it worked correctly in X but not on text console. Fixed it with a dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration)

2. A newer Dell PC Optiplex 990
- UEFI / GPT mode (with secure boot disabled of course)
- Standard Install
- Chose Cinnamon Desktop, OpenRC
--> worked very well
(had to add the non-free firmware-amd-graphics for the AMD GPU)

I tested to install a second DE on both machines: XFCE4 using the tasksel program, and it went very well.
Is there a chance to get rid of the installation of anacron by default? That thing still does delay enormously the shutdown, occasionally.

--> Conclusion: it's already very good for me, thank you for that very pleasant and successful adventure

Is your GNOME desktop running in "fallback" mode?
If yes, make sure your graphics controller is supported or install the non-free firmware drivers. Gnome needs 3D acceleration.
It's just my thought, but possibly off-track.
Good luck.

rolfie,
there is one thing to mention:
If you set the motherboard to CSM mode, then you are well advised to install  in NON-UEFI mode!
If you set the motherboard to UEFI mode, then you MUST disable the "secure boot" option and install in UEFI (EFI) mode.
You can choose the install-mode  when you boot your stick afresh.
The Devuan installers handle these things quite well, usually... so is my experience with it.
I know, it's possible to fiddle with CSM disk mode and EFI boot, or in UEFI mode with classic (CSM) boot. If you succeed, all the better, but expect upgrades, migration or parallel-installs to fail.
I have learned that the hard way: EFI is fine, CSM is fine, but UEFI (secureboot) is a portal to hell.

I own a HP elitebook PC (Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook 8460p/161C)
and it runs like a charm with Devuan Beowulf.
All I can say is this:
- first of all, make sure you reset all BIOS-settings to default,
- then make sensible changes you wish to it.
- then, if UEFI boot mode is used, disable "Secure Boot" (That means DO NOT USE THE TPM)
You can use classic BIOS mode as well (CHS-mode for the disks). It's less tricky.
Then install normally.
Do you have any special graphics processor on board? Intel chips work well, but be careful if there is a NVIDIA or AMD GPU.
Good luck.