The officially official Devuan Forum!

You are not logged in.

#1 Off-topic » Fluxer a Discord clone? » 2026-04-01 01:55:44

ruenoak
Replies: 2

I just heard about this open source Discord clone called Fluxer https://fluxer.app/ I signed p to it to have a look around, it is very much like Discord in it's look and feel.

There are a few GUN/Linux groups, there, Debian for one. I'm wondering if Devuan should setup something over there, or at least reserve the name in case Fluxer takes off?

#2 Re: Off-topic » HexChat's GTK3 Successor: ZoiteChat » 2026-03-30 02:48:33

Hi all, I have been using Zoitechat since It was posted here. I upgraded from 2.17.4 to 2.18.0 pre5 about a week ago now and it is working very well, version 2.18.0 pre5 supports gtk3 theme switching. There is a bug with the spell check underlining which the dev knows about and is working on it.

I'm using the Appimage on Devuan, but also testing the Snap build as well. Of course I don't think Snaps will be much of an interest here. smile

#3 Re: Off-topic » systemd starting to store birthDate » 2026-03-19 22:34:48

The greater concern that I see with the current age attestation/verification laws that are popping up all over the place, is they are spreading like a virus. with out a lot of push back. As these laws become more common and enforced, I think we will see FOSS projects either comply by force or shutdown. This is a great way to finally extinguish that pesky GNU/Linux thing. I add GNU here because it is the GNU bit that these big tech companies don't like, and I am including some big Linux companies in this group too. The rise of the likes of 'Microsoft loves Opensource' is just free-washing in my mind. FOSS is great when you can use a permissive license to pull the rug out from you at any point in time.

Anyway I'm going off track a bit here but, this is my theory from observation of course, I don't have the evidence to back it up, so it will remain a theory floating across the either of space and time with all the other theories out there.

What I do know is, none of us are immune to these nefarious laws. So how do we fight them?  Education, We need to educate the people that It's is not about saving the children, It's about slow but assured surveillance at a thousand paper-cuts!
A politician's number one goal is to stay in power, and to do that it's a popularity contest, so if they are seen to be backing a very unpopular bill by the masses, they will probably back down.

Education! It works.

#4 Re: News & Announcements » How you can help Devuan » 2026-02-23 08:23:37

Excellent! Thanks @golinux I will have a look through this.

#5 Re: Off-topic » HexChat's GTK3 Successor: ZoiteChat » 2026-02-23 08:21:44

This does look exciting! Have grabbed the Appimage and sofar it is working well. Looks like my Hexchat custom theme config will work with this as well. Good find!

#6 Re: News & Announcements » How you can help Devuan » 2026-02-22 21:17:10

For some reason I thought this had been taken up by someone after you originally announced you were looking to hand over. I'm not expert at theming but have modified themes  for myself and I am in the process of updating a couple of the Bisigi themes to work in Xfce and Mate, though this is a trial and error approach.

I wouldn't mine having a look and helping out with theming for Devuan. As said no export but I learn by doing!

When I am home tonight, I will have a look at the github link.

#7 Re: Off-topic » Password managers » 2026-02-17 21:10:54

I agree keeping passwords locally is best.
I guess password managers are partly a generational thing too, when the world went to the "online by default" model. My entry into the world of computers was "offline by default" so passwords were either written down with stone age tools or in a local text file.

Unfortunately we are forced to be online and logged in to everything or it doesn't work! These days I use my Browser password manager but I keep that local and not synced.

It's not perfect I know.

#9 Installation » [SOLVED] Lightdm replaced by Slim in Excalibur ? » 2025-11-06 04:36:30

ruenoak
Replies: 3

Hi all I noticed when installing the release Live Desktop ISO that Slim has returned as the default login manager. I have been running the earlier RC images and was surprised to LightDM as the default login manager, but now this seems to have changed back to Slim.

Is there any reason for this, just curious, that's all.

Thanks
Rue

#10 Devuan » Devuan Excalibur Install » 2025-09-11 22:40:13

ruenoak
Replies: 0

Thought I might give a quick installation update of Devuan Excalibur
This was a fresh installation on a Thinkpad T14s. I have been running Devuan Excalibur in a VM for quite a while and noticed how stable it has been recently, I also I spotted the recent updates to the iso images so thought hey let's put this on hardware.

It booted into the live desktop environment without a problem and the hardware seemed to be detected correctly so I ran the installer and went through the setup. Nothing too fancy, created an efi partition of 400mb and the rest as for the os and swap. No errors during the installation and rebooted into a fresh installation of Devuan.

Now I said that all my hardware was detected, that's not quite correct.I noticed that my sound card was not detected and was showing 'dummy output', A bit of investigation I found I needed to install firmware package 'firmware-sof-signed' once that was installed I was ready to go!

Yes I know Excalibur is still in testing but hey you got to take risks sometimes, don't you? ;-)

All in all, a very nice experience.
Thanks to the Devuan team for all the work you have done.

R.

I thought it best to post this under Devuan and not Installation, as it's not really an installation query, but more of a quick review.

#11 Re: Off-topic » Happy Labor Day friends! » 2025-08-30 18:14:34

Yes, happy Labour Day and many thanks to all the Devuan team and all those who help make this distribution what it is.
Of course, I'm speaking from the future, as Labour Day isn't until the 27th of October down here. wink

#12 Re: Off-topic » Why writing init scripts was so scary and people needed systemd for? » 2025-08-19 00:43:32

I speak with no authority on the subject but from what I have read and heard, the hard coding of systemd into applications is mostly unnecessary. I don't know what benefits to that application it enhances other than enforcing systemd

I could be completely wrong here though.

#14 Re: Off-topic » Is systemd still bad in 2025? » 2025-08-11 07:21:21

The systemd creep! Long has it been since systemd was just an init system, It's becoming an operating system.
DJ Ware released a video on this recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co_BAWycucw

#15 Re: Off-topic » Hello Windows 11, They finally got me! » 2025-07-16 06:53:47

No, not Dosbox, though I run Dosbox as well. 
I have a VM running Windows 98 SE I guess, partly for nostalgia.

#16 Re: Off-topic » Hello Windows 11, They finally got me! » 2025-07-15 01:10:32

The Windows 11 machine is a work laptop not my own, previously running Windows 10. I work in Government so these machines are security managed, they won't be running anything other than what's provided.

At home, I don't run Windows 11 or any Windows version apart from Win 98 in a VM. All my hardware runs Linux.

#17 Off-topic » Hello Windows 11, They finally got me! » 2025-07-14 06:34:18

ruenoak
Replies: 5

Well they finally got me after around six months of avoiding the ICT department via working in different locations, not spending much time in corporate buildings and just being generally elusive. About too weeks ago they got me with the 'we are removing you from the network ploy' so now I am a Windows 11 user.
As said it's been around two weeks and I have had to update and reboot five times now, when is it going to stop!

As a bonus the very expensive hardware I use isn't compatible with Windows 11, the response from the vendor is upgrade your hardware. They could just upgrade their drivers but no, it is far more profitable to upgrade the hardware.

I remember many moons ago the same thing happened when we moved from XP to Windows 7, I feel like I'm in the wrong business sometimes.

At least I can come home to my Devuan machine and experience a little bit of freedom and a glass of vino!

Happy Windows 11 all!

#18 Re: Off-topic » Note taking » 2025-03-19 22:02:07

Another mention of Mousepad excellent! smile

#19 Re: News & Announcements » Chrome based browsers and uBlock Origin » 2025-03-05 19:17:20

Removed from Edge as well apparently.
To my surprise uBlock Origin is available for my beloved SeaMonkey!

#20 Re: Off-topic » Note taking » 2025-03-02 21:08:04

Now orgmode, I was briefly introduced to this when I was using or attempting to use emacs.
I have been toying with the idea of another attempt to master emacs and after a quick read of the orgmode site https://orgmode.org/ I might need to look into it more seriously.
GTD (Get Things Done methodology) sounds interesting I'm going to look into this as I have a cluttered and disorganised brain.

I'm dyslexic and one trait of dyslexia is they way we work through tasks, instead of starting at 0 and working through to 9, If i don't keep myself in check I will start at 7 find myself completely in another dimension at -4 teleported to 17.5 and eventually arrive at 9. It can be quite an adventure. Unfortunately in the corporate world they don't see it that way.

Tasks for this evening.

0. install emacs

I think I can manage that!

#21 Re: News & Announcements » Devuan 2024 financial report » 2025-02-23 18:43:37

Great to see things are going well .
I still can't donate directly to Devuan unfortunately, PayPal still says my county is not supported though PayPal say it is.
I had the same problem recently when donating to the SeaMonkey project so who knows.

Anyway I setup a donation to the Dyne foundation through Kofi hopefully some it goes to Devuan.
Could Devuan be donated directly through Kofi maybe ?

init freedom

Rue.

#22 Re: Off-topic » Note taking » 2025-02-20 02:52:26

Yes you are right about other formats I work in the field of Records and Archiving and we are well into the world of digital archiving  and my work in extracting data from the numerous file formats in existence brings new meaning to format hell! sometimes we can only extract the raw data into a text file and then try to make it human readable.

Text is best!

#23 Re: Off-topic » Note taking » 2025-02-19 20:16:32

Yes agreed the universal aspect of text makes them ideal for information storage and retrieval. I have an old Compaq Pentium III laptop running Devuan minimal, really a prof of concept on how Devuan can be used to recycle old technology, but If I had to I can read all my text files on that machine.

#24 Off-topic » Note taking » 2025-02-18 22:18:40

ruenoak
Replies: 12

Hi all, just wondering what does the community do to create, sort and store their notes?
I have used various note taking applications in the past but have always returned to text files in folder.
Speaking of applications I do like Zimwiki and used it for quite a while and still have it installed.

My basic structure for note taking is Mousepad as my editor, though any text editor will do, a folder called Notes and the naming convention is ‘date-description’.
I save everything as markdown though, I have been saving in gemtext too.

I like text it’s very zen and I find Mousepad and a Notes folder is all I really need.

#25 Re: Installation » Ollama and DeepSeek » 2025-02-16 21:48:48

Hi alsen Ive used GPT4ALL on Devuan using a flatpak. It worked okay though it does require good amount of ram at least 16gb.
I see it has Deepseek added now too.

I haven't tried to install it any other way apart from the flatpak.
(https://www.nomic.ai/gpt4all)

(https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all)

Board footer

Forum Software