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Gnostic

Member

Registered: 2023-11-11

Posts: 34  

Accidental success: Devuan on a HP ZBook

At work, they were having a clearout of some obsolete hardware. One item was a HP ZBook, which worked fine from mains power, but the battery was dead. Not a problem for me, intending to use it as a desktop device.

Having read elsewhere here about the quirks of HP UEFI, I wasn't too confident about installing Devuan on it. Sure enough, it seemed to install but wouldn't boot cleanly. I tried installing twice, with different options, but still no success - or so it seemed.

Feeling rather sad about that, I thought I would at least try Linux Mint instead. Imagine my surprise when the Linux Mint installation told me I already had Devuan installed, and then gave me an option to install both with Gparted resizing the main partition to give both half-each of the main hard drive.

Booting that after installing Mint, it gave me both as options. Choosing Devuan, it now boots cleanly! Happy day.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,035  

Re: Accidental success: Devuan on a HP ZBook

Hello:

... my surprise when the Linux Mint installation told me I already had Devuan installed ...

As you surely know, Mint is a systemd distribution and I cannot but wonder if HP UEFI just plays nicer with systemd present than when it is not.

Just a thought.

When you say "but wouldn't boot cleanly" I understand (like the Mint installer) that Devuan was installed and actually booted, albeit with something not being right.

Could you please tell us just what you are making reference to?

Best,

A.

Gnostic

Member

Registered: 2023-11-11

Posts: 34  

Re: Accidental success: Devuan on a HP ZBook

Hello Altoid
"but wouldn't boot cleanly"
Sorry, I should have been more explicit. It would boot as far as GRUB, but I lacked the skills or knowledge to get it go any further.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 2,035  

Re: Accidental success: Devuan on a HP ZBook

Hello:

"but wouldn't boot cleanly"
... should have been more explicit.

Indeed ... 8^D

... would boot as far as GRUB ...

Ahh ...

So, as I thought, the system did boot.

You just did not get a desktop because (most probably)* as you did not install the GRUB bootloader, the system booted into GRUB2.
No fault of yours as it seems that the GRUB package is not included in the available installation images from Daedalus onwards.

See here:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7970
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=63791#p63791

Probably because ... 'reasons'?
ie: the desperate need of imposing all that UEFI crap of anyone and everyone.

* My memory is a bit hazy, the last Linux Devuan I installed on a clean drive was either Jesse or ascii, long ago.
From then on, it has been dist-upgrades for my BIOS (non-UEFI) Sun U24 WS.

... lacked the skills or knowledge to get it go any further.

At this point it does not matter.
ie: you have installed Mint, which found a Devuan installation and solved the issue you had by installing the GRUB bootloader*.
* educated guess, corrections welcome.

If interested in learning your way around a non-systemd Linux, you may want to read up on how to properly install Devuan from the various files available for download.

Mint doing everything on 'automatic' is nice and straightforward.
But you won't learn much.  8^°

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (Today 00:23:51)