If you don't want contrib and non-free enabled during the installation, then choose expert install, and it will ask. If you don't know enough to use expert install, your wireless firmware will be installed automatically, and you will be glad you have it. Especially if you can't do a wired connection.

I don't know if wget is installed or available on a mac, but if it is...

wget -c http://distro.ibiblio.org/refracta/files/experimental/devuan_jessie_amd64_bpo_desktop-live-20170522_1240.iso

If the download fails at some point, run the command again and  the -c option will make the download continue from where it left off.

Newer versions of mate packaged by Antofox are available here -
http://hezeh.org/the-hezeh-repository/

The plan is for these to be added to the main devuan repository. I don't have an exact timeline, but it shouldn't be too long. This is one of the higher priority tasks right now.

If that doesn't fix it, one workaround is to install pmount and use spacefm to mount/unmount usb drives.

Aha! More to it than I thought about. If you install from the regular installer isos, grub looks in /boot and lists the newest version kernel first. If you install from the live isos (using refractainstaller) it uses the symlinks /vmlinuz and /initrd.img which will be the most recent kernel you installed, regardless of the version. The kernel that gets replaced gets the /vmlinuz.old symlink.

I can think of two reasons for showing the old kernel - either you didn't install the newer kernel or you haven't rebooted yet. The kernel doesn't get automatically upgraded to a newer version unless you have the kernel metapackage installed. (something like linux-image-amd64)

Thanks for taking the plunge. I've been wanting to try an upgrade to ascii on miyo or vuudo for awhile but haven't gotten around to it.
'

In general, I would say that ascii is not ready, but it is possible to use it. If the instructions you saw are these - https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebia … PS_13_9360 - I have some comments.

They don't say why you need stretch. My best guess is that you need the newer kernel. One way around that would be to use the backports kernel in jessie. You can get wireless firmware from backports, too. I don't suppose costco would let you boot a live-usb on their floor model, but if they did, you could try a devuan live-iso I made with backports kernel and wireless firmware - http://distro.ibiblio.org/refracta/files/experimental/  (note: it's not an official release, but it was made and signed by the guy who did make the official desktop-live isos.)

The major deal-breaker I see is the recommendation to install gnome desktop environment. Gnome depends heavily on systemd, and parts of it are uninstallable in devuan. If you knew which parts of it were really needed for this laptop, you might be able to install just those parts. If you're counting on using devuan on this laptop, it might be a risky purchase.

postunpack is an error log generated by lib/libdevuansdk/zlibs/bootstrap.

I don't know if anyone has tried live-sdk on anything other than devuan. There are references to devaun in /usr/share/debootstrap/scripts/jessie in the devuan version of debootstrap, but I doubt you'll find them in debian or ubuntu. Maybe it's possible to install devuan debootstrap in ubuntu, and if so, maybe it will work. I don't know.

Ceres and Sid have the same version. It's probably because qupzilla was built with newer qt5 libraries that haven't made it into the repo yet. Wait a few days or a few weeks and things should catch up.

Thanks for the appreciation. Glad it works for you.

You have to change limit_cpu="no" to "yes" for cpulimit to work. It's not on by default.

Changing the work and snapshot directories should work correctly. Check the config file to make sure you edited it correctly. Make sure the storage device is mounted. If you want a more verbose error log, run it in debug mode (add -d option or change the setting in the config file).

If you have more than one window manager or desktop environment, the slim login screen will let you scroll through them with the F1 key.

rsyslog from jessie-backports installs and works in ascii, so that's another option. I haven't tried it in ceres.

To each, his own. I couldn't get away from the default slim background fast enough. Is it the blue one or the red one?

I'll answer in reverse order of your questions.

UEFI install works with the installer isos, same as debian. For the desktop-live, there's a separate iso for uefi.

The default desktop is xfce and uses xfce4-power-manager. Mate has its own power manager, and I'm not sure what lxde uses. From what I hear, they all suck. I haven't heard of anyone using powertop, but if you try it, please let us know how it works.

I don't know about docker. Ceres and ascii have the same version as stretch, buster and sid - 1.5-1+b1 0

Nvidia driver is the same as in debian. Here are the available versions. It's also possible to install from the nvidia binary, just as in debian. See the debian wiki for instructions on the different ways to install it.

apt-cache policy nvidia-driver
nvidia-driver:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 340.102-1
  Version table:
     375.66-2 0
         10 http://debian.csail.mit.edu/debian/ buster/non-free amd64 Packages
         10 http://debian.csail.mit.edu/debian/ sid/non-free amd64 Packages
        100 http://auto.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ ceres/non-free amd64 Packages
     375.66-1 0
         10 http://debian.csail.mit.edu/debian/ stretch/non-free amd64 Packages
        100 http://us.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ ascii/non-free amd64 Packages
     375.66-1~bpo8+1 0
        200 http://packages.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-backports/non-free amd64 Packages
     340.102-1 0
        500 http://us.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie/non-free amd64 Packages

I'm confused. How did you solve it?

Your sources.list looks ok except that you're using ascii, not ceres. Did you reinstall or do something else? Right now, I think it makes more sense to use ascii, but it also might help to enable ceres and pin it to a lower priority.  Then you can add packages from ceres selectively.

I don't think you need the packages.devuan.org line, but it won't hurt. If you want the rsyslog from jessie-backports, you would need to temporarily add a line with

deb http://packages.devuan.org/merged jessie-backports main

and then run

apt-get update
apt-get -t jessie-backports install rsyslog

(Then remove the jessie-backports line and update again)