Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

nixer · 2019-04-15 01:03:47

I haven't read anything on a debian buster to devuan beowulf migration anywhere. I was wondering if it was possible. So, not having much to do today, I thought I would give it a try. To my surprise, it did work, utilizing a minimal install. It was not quite as simple as a single "apt dist-upgrade" command, but I did get it to work using a trial and error "path". I do not claim this to be clean or as simple as it could be, like a jessie to jessie migration, or even a stretch to ascii migration. I only wanted to report that it did work, and these are the steps on how it was done. I have all the terminal output saved if anyone is interested in seeing, improving, or simplifying this method.

This was done in virtualbox. I installed the debian buster "testing" iso file (with firmwares) located at:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unof … 64/iso-cd/
I then connected to this VM through ssh so that I could copy from and paste into a terminal window. This was easier than using the vm window.
From this debian install, I made only the following changes:
- installed net-tools, to display ip address

apt install net-tools

- export PATH to /root/.bashrc by adding:

export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

I then started the migration to devuan:
- changed sources.list to devuan, left only the one beowulf main entry
- installed devuan-keyring with

wget http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/pool … 03_all.deb

dpkg -i devuan-keyring_2017.10.03

- then ran these commands:

apt update
apt upgrade
apt install eudev
apt -f install
apt install sysvinit
reboot
apt dist-upgrade

-altered /etc/network/interfaces file
change these two lines from,

allow-hotplug enp0s3
iface enp0s3 inet dhcp

-to-

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

-then updated grub to change Debian to Devuan

update-grub

- purge systemd with

apt remove systemd --purge
apt remove libnss-systemd --purge

apt install libelogind0

to see that all is well.

reboot

Finally, the command

dpkg -l | grep systemd

produces no output. No systemd here!!

I distinctly remember reading three or four years ago that the ability to migrate from a debian to devuan install may not be possible in the future. I don't think that day is here, yet.

fsmithred · 2019-04-15 11:47:21

It looks like you were able to do an upgrade in devuan while running systemd. Is that correct? Did apt complain? Or did you install sysvinit first?

I then connected to this VM through ssh so that I could copy from and paste into a terminal window. This was easier than using the vm window.

1+

Thanks for testing and for the nice write-up. It looks pretty easy. I've tried a few upgrades from ascii to beowulf, and those were easy.

nixer · 2019-04-15 15:49:53

It looks like you were able to do an upgrade in devuan while running systemd.

Actually, you ~~may be~~ are correct. I did not notice that. I think you are referring to the first "apt upgrade", yes that was while using systemd. I thought that would only pull in the stuff that was not requiring systemd. In total, there were only 10 or 12 packages pulled in. I just had to find a good step by step so that apt could do it right.

fsr > In case you are interested, I will email you the note that I made of the steps and terminal output. I finally got it to work one time and I did it again, step by step, to make sure that the steps were correct.

I really was not expecting it to work at all. Before this test, I also did a stretch to ascii migration and it was much easier.

fsmithred · 2019-04-15 18:35:26

Excellent! Thanks!

What I've done in the past was to install sysvinit-core and reboot in debian before switching to devuan.

fsr (Still waiting to hear of someone migrating a devuan install to debian.)

FlibberTGibbet · 2019-09-23 09:29:01

Thanks for the clear and comprehensive write-up.

It took a very similar set of steps to migrate a WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) Debian 10 install over to Beowulf. As I recall the other necessary step was to change a link to init to point at sysv's init, rather than the 'special' version that I think came with WSL. Amazingly, more or less everything else worked right away after the upgrade.

Rehabilitating WSL is a decidedly niche interest, but it's great for those of us who like a 'proper' shell and all the Linux goodies on a work-mandated Windows machine.

chillfan · 2020-02-06 18:45:48

Thanks for doing this write-up, I like it very much and have seen people coming over to Devuan using this post.

Cheers!

Last edited by chillfan (2020-02-14 00:36:21)

ChuangTzu · 2020-03-06 23:49:01

I followed the above steps and was also able to migrate a Debian Buster (hard metal) to Devuan Beowulf. Note: I did switch to sysvinit-core and Wicd first then rebooted before starting the migration. Also started the migration while using icewm.

* So far so good.

inxi -Fr
System:  Kernel: 4.19.0-8-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.4 Distro: Devuan GNU/Linux 3 (beowulf) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Compaq 6005 Pro SFF PC v:
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 28.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           1: deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates main contrib non-free
           3: deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security main contrib non-free
           4: deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-backports main contrib non-free

Last edited by ChuangTzu (2020-03-07 01:52:04)

swanson · 2020-04-22 20:11:49

I've also followed these instructions above. But I migrated from Ubuntu Mate 18.04 to Beowulf. It was a mess but fun! How nice to run /etc/init.d/networking again!

Some of the hitches were with Elogind, which wouldn't configure during install but after uninstalling systemd it went ok. And a couple of others like avahi.

I couldn't have done it wihtout this thread and the app aptitude. So far I've just done aptitude safe-upgrade since aptitude full-upgrade had way too many conflicts. And I've also just enabled the repo beowulf main yet. But I will continue....

So you can migrate from Ubuntu to Devuan too!

golinux · 2020-04-22 20:24:05

@swanson . . . You might also want to have a look at the documentation on the beta website in case you have need to do a similar migration.

swanson · 2020-04-22 21:04:09

golinux wrote:

@swanson . . . You might also want to have a look at the documentation on the beta website in case you have need to do a similar migration.

Yes, I saw that first and tried to follow it but got stuck on installing the devuan keyring. It was not until this thread suggested to download the keyring as a deb-file and then installing it, that I could continue. So I followed this thread instead.

It's gone quite ok and I've migrated some more packages now. Still some to go but the remaining packages seem non-essential for booting and logging in. So long as you can boot and log in to a console most things can be fixed. But I log in to Beowulf Xfce 4.12 right now, so it's ok. A good feeling!

golinux · 2020-04-22 21:57:25

Thanks and congrats! Maybe that bit of info needs to be added to the website version.

swanson · 2020-04-23 05:00:13

@golinux: Might be a good idea to add that bit about downloading the keyring deb-file and doing "dpkg -i". I fooled around quite a bit with that and it took some time before I followed this thread. Seems that "apt" have some differences between Ubuntu and Debian, or that Debian already have some files installed that Ubuntu does not, and that it might be a tad easier to migrate from Debian than from Ubuntu. Or it might be just me......

PS. I'm glad to avoid Ubuntu 20.04 too. There's no debate about systemd, almost no debate about snap and so on. There's only concern about icons, themes and superficial stuff with the release of 20.04.

swanson · 2020-04-23 09:09:41

Finally complete migration! After some tinkering with dependencies, mostly due to some packages being newer in the the old Ubuntu install than in Beowulf. It was for example gcc-8-base, gstreamer-bad and -good. But "sudo apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-all" install xxxxxx-package" solved some of it and aptitude full-upgrade several times. aptitude is very good at suggesting solutions for package conflicts.

All good!

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#1 2019-04-15 01:03:47

Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#2 2019-04-15 11:47:21

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#3 2019-04-15 15:49:53

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#4 2019-04-15 18:35:26

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#5 2019-09-23 09:29:01

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#6 2020-02-06 18:45:48

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#7 2020-03-06 23:49:01

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#8 2020-04-22 20:11:49

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#9 2020-04-22 20:24:05

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#10 2020-04-22 21:04:09

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#11 2020-04-22 21:57:25

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#12 2020-04-23 05:00:13

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

#13 2020-04-23 09:09:41

Re: Migration from debian buster to devuan beowulf can work

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