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tomec

Member

Registered: 2023-06-22

Posts: 7  

[GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

Hi guys,
I've been able to successfully get a Devuan Daedalus GNOME setup up and running and I wanted to share with you a couple of tips and bug workarounds.

1) First of all, the RefractaInstaller will luks-encrypt - if chosen to do so - the disk partitions with LUKS2 and the argon2id PBKDF key format but this is incompatible with GRUB and the system will never boot.
To solve this, you have to convert the PBKDF key format from argon2id to argon2i at least:

sudo cryptsetup luksConvertKey /dev/whatever --pbkdf argon2i

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

sudo update-grub

You can also convert it to LUKS1 but it might be a hit or miss:

sudo cryptsetup convert /dev/whatever --type luks1

2) pipewire, pipewire-pulse and wireplumber will not autostart after login, so I created three .desktop files with menulibre, containing each the required command to start them:

/usr/bin/pipewire
/usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
/usr/bin/wireplumber

Then you need to move them from ~/.local/share/applications to /etc/xdg/autostart or ~/.config/autostart (create it if missing).
Another simpler way would be to run gnome-session-properties but I couldn't find it anywhere in the repos.

I'd recommend you to install pipewire-libcamera as well.

3) software-properties-gtk does not start, it crashes due to a python error about an undefined variable (something like eol_date and distro.eol).
I commented out some lines in the .py script and got it somewhat working but it seems a suboptimal experience and it needs a proper fix.

4) Maybe related to 3): GNOME Software gets populated by flatpaks only and lacks .deb packages.

5) The backlight brightness gets maxed out on every boot and to fix this we have to add a line in the /etc/rc.local script above exit 0 like this:

echo [value] | tee  /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl0/brightness (in my case).

To completely install the GNOME desktop I'd advise you to use the tasksel command that also allows you to delete the default XFCE environment if you don't need it.
In this case, moreover I would run:

sudo apt purge xfce4*
sudo apt autoremove

With that said, Devuan with GNOME rocks! It feels snappier and even stabler than Debian Bookworm itself.

Last edited by tomec (2023-06-22 19:36:45)

tomec

Member

Registered: 2023-06-22

Posts: 7  

Re: [GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

Actually the problem with 1) was a bit more serious than what I thought: the system installed by RefractaInstaller lacks the cryptsetup-initramfs package and it's also impossible to regenerate the initrd images from the live media, so you need another running system, a chroot, to install the package, rebuild the initramfs, update-grub and reboot.
This drove me really crazy on another system without EFI support!

By the way, I installed Daedalus from the 20230501 desktop live snapshot.

tomec

Member

Registered: 2023-06-22

Posts: 7  

Re: [GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

Expectedly, although I'm fine with xorg for the time being, the Wayland session is broken and some programs like Chromium, Firefox ESR, Synaptic etc. are not starting their GUI unless launched with their according wayland flags (if any); portals and xwayland are installed and running.
Just to let you know.

thierrybo

Member

Registered: 2017-11-11

Posts: 107  

Re: [GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

4) Maybe related to 3): GNOME Software gets populated by flatpaks only and lacks .deb packages.

Gnome Software and Plasma Discover are broken on Devuan because both need Yalm metadata sources that are not available on Devuan. (Debian metadata for packagekit, Gnome Software and Plama Discover https://appstream.debian.org/ for example.)

Last edited by thierrybo (2023-06-25 13:29:44)

tomec

Member

Registered: 2023-06-22

Posts: 7  

Re: [GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

4) Maybe related to 3): GNOME Software gets populated by flatpaks only and lacks .deb packages.

Gnome Software and Plasma Discover are broken on Devuan because both need Yalm metadata sources that are not available on Devuan. (Debian metadata for packagekit, Gnome Software and Plama Discover https://appstream.debian.org/ for example.)

Thanks, that's good to know! It's not a big deal though as long as the terminal and synaptic exist

Last edited by tomec (2023-06-25 18:29:23)

soren

Member

Registered: 2023-04-30

Posts: 142  

Re: [GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

Expectedly, although I'm fine with xorg for the time being, the Wayland session is broken and some programs like Chromium, Firefox ESR, Synaptic etc. are not starting their GUI unless launched with their according wayland flags (if any); portals and xwayland are installed and running.
Just to let you know.

I know with Firefox you can put this in $HOME/.profile to get it working under wayland. Not sure about the Chromium and Synaptic though.

if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" = "wayland" ]; then
    export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
fi

tomec

Member

Registered: 2023-06-22

Posts: 7  

Re: [GNOME] Tips and workarounds for a Devuan Daedalus GNOME system

Expectedly, although I'm fine with xorg for the time being, the Wayland session is broken and some programs like Chromium, Firefox ESR, Synaptic etc. are not starting their GUI unless launched with their according wayland flags (if any); portals and xwayland are installed and running.
Just to let you know.

I know with Firefox you can put this in $HOME/.profile to get it working under wayland. Not sure about the Chromium and Synaptic though.

if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" = "wayland" ]; then
    export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
fi

Yes, that's correct: in wayland mode they all run, but for some reason under xwayland (without flags, when supported) they don't. I can see their processes in the task manager but they won't show up in the GUI.
Also no errors in logs or if you launch them from the terminal.

Last edited by tomec (2023-06-27 22:54:42)