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sephiroth

Member

From: Fayetteville, NC, USA

Registered: 2025-05-27

Posts: 1  

Minimalist/selective installation?

I'm looking to install Devaun on a pair of Lenovo T570 laptops. I run Gentoo on my T580 but have no interest in maintaining that on my wife and daughter's systems. I used Debian until systemd showed up, so I figure it's time to try Devuan.

I used to have a method for installing Debian where I could install a minimalist shell using the network CD/DVD and manually install only the shell utilities I wanted, then install just the very core of KDE/Plasma and then install only the things I wanted there as well. Is this possible in Devuan? Where do I start?

Next up is the network CD image. I can't seem to make it boot with my standard USB drive setup. I run Ventoy and it boots the Debian netinstall, but not the Devuan. It boots Gentoo, System Rescue CD, all kinds of Windows ISOs, and more, but it doesn't like Devuan. Has anybody managed to boot Devuan without wasting a 256GB drive for a netinstall ISO? I don't really have a spare drive and most of my drives are quite large and not suitable for such a tiny ISO.

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 909  

Website

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

Devuan is not compatible with Ventoy it seems, have a look at this thread, may be some help:

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7092

Shame that laptop doesn't have an optical drive.

The Devuan net-install works just like the Debian, you can choose to only create a CLI-only iso if desired then install programs after installing/booting it, or at the software section you can choose to add a number of DE's including KDE, but i'm not sure that will give you a core-only KDE, probably installs the whole works, I know if you choose Mate it installs the whole Mate meta-package.

If I want just core stuff, I do the CLI-only, boot that up, then start apt'ing.

Have not used or tested Ventoy myself. You can likely dd the iso manually if you're comfortable using dd.

I use Mintstick typically, it seems to just work with everything so far. Refracta2usb also works great, offering options for multi-boot and persistence that Mintstick does not.

ETA: Welcome to Devuan! It might have some quirks being free of the curse of systemd, but it's well worth the effort in the end, simple and stable.

Last edited by greenjeans (2025-05-27 19:22:20)

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https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do/ New Vuu-do isos uploaded April 2025!
Vuu-do GNU/Linux, minimal Devuan-based Openbox and Mate systems to build on. Also a max version for OB.
Devuan 5 mate-mini iso, pure Devuan, 100% no-vuu-do. Devuan 6 version also available for testing.
Please donate to support Devuan and init freedom! https://devuan.org/os/donate

MLEvD

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 156  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

Been finding refracta isos work with ventoy and have used devuan with ventoy in the past???

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 909  

Website

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

^^^I'm just going by what others have said, again I have no experience with Ventoy myself.

In point of fact i'm working on my own scripts to make a utility to burn iso's to sticks and create additional partitions, of all of them Refracta2usb is the most complete and works the best to do all the things. I'm working on something in between it and Mintstick in terms of functionality. It's tough messing with USB's sometimes, fine line between success and disaster when working with all the things necessary to make it happen.

---

https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do/ New Vuu-do isos uploaded April 2025!
Vuu-do GNU/Linux, minimal Devuan-based Openbox and Mate systems to build on. Also a max version for OB.
Devuan 5 mate-mini iso, pure Devuan, 100% no-vuu-do. Devuan 6 version also available for testing.
Please donate to support Devuan and init freedom! https://devuan.org/os/donate

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,627  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

Here's a daedalus (stable) mini.iso, a.k.a. business card iso. Network install only, no wireless for the install. This one should boot for you.
https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/dis … t/mini.iso

It's also possible to use the live isos to do a debootstrap install.

stopAI

Member

Registered: 2023-04-04

Posts: 229  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

I used to have a method for installing Debian where I could install a minimalist shell using the network CD/DVD and manually install only the shell utilities I wanted, then install just the very core of KDE/Plasma

Hello.
I'll put in my three cents and say that this is not a minimal system installation, because Plasma does not fall into the understanding of minimalism.

If you want to install Devuan and have a REALLY MINIMAL system, then you should use debootstrap mechanism.
More info here
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ … 03.en.html

RedGreen925

Member

Registered: 2024-12-07

Posts: 116  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

say that this is not a minimal system installation, because Plasma does not fall into the understanding of minimalism.

It is a minimalist way of getting a graphical installation on the computer without all the extras that get pulled in by the meta package method of installing and is what I do every time as well. Which is obviously his goal when doing such he did not say he wants next to nothing installed.. Your understanding of what he wants in a  minimal install is totally wrong for this situation.

stopAI

Member

Registered: 2023-04-04

Posts: 229  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

in a  minimal install is totally wrong for this situation.

Hello.

The system installation method I proposed is correct, because it allows you to install a COMPLETELY MINIMAL CLI system. By the way, the author's desire to install a minimal system and install a monstrous KDE environment on it (with its own packages) is more than strange. Do CLI programs that take up about two dozen megabytes on the disk matter if he plans to install Kde, which takes up almost one gigabyte of disk space?

Last edited by stopAI (2025-05-28 15:39:37)

Khylsdrak

Member

Registered: 2025-04-19

Posts: 12  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

Like stopAI, I don't understand why you want a small CLI core with a bloated KDE. I use dwm as my window manager, which is really lightweight and efficient. Ultra minimalist, it takes a bit of time to master. But if you want to offer a simple and efficient window manager to your family, jwm is really efficient and minimalist. Jwm is used in Puppy Linux. Devuan with jwm might be a good minimalist window manager for you.

Last edited by Khylsdrak (2025-05-28 17:16:19)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,627  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

I'll try to expain for you folks who aren't getting it. If you install a desktop environment from the installer iso, it uses a metapackage such as task-xfce-desktop or other desktop, which pulls in all parts of the chosen DE plus all other desktop applications. Trying to remove some parts of that will often result in the whole desktop being removed.

If you start with a minimal system, you can add the parts of the desktop that you want along with the specific applications that you want and have a leaner system than you would get with the task-* package.

Example: How do you install kde without getting libreoffice or gimp? Partial answer: You don't install task-kde-desktop.

$ apt depends task-kde-desktop
task-kde-desktop
  Depends: tasksel (= 3.73devuan1)
  Depends: task-desktop
  Depends: kde-standard
 |Depends: lightdm
 |Depends: slim
  Depends: sddm
  Recommends: kdeaccessibility
  Recommends: orca
  Recommends: gimp
  Recommends: libreoffice-writer
  Recommends: libreoffice-calc
  Recommends: libreoffice-impress
  Recommends: libreoffice-plasma
  Recommends: libreoffice-kf5
  Recommends: libreoffice-help-en-us
  Recommends: mythes-en-us
  Recommends: hunspell-en-us
  Recommends: hyphen-en-us
  Recommends: print-manager
 |Recommends: <time-daemon>
    chrony
    ntpsec
    openntpd
  Recommends: ntpsec-ntpdate

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,255  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

Fighting about minimalism is hairsplitting. The OP obviously wants to setup a system according to his wishes and considerations without all that stuff that is pulled in by the task*-Packages. I use this approach myself which is some sort of minimalism in the wider sense. Install a cli from the netinstall, and then install the DE I prefer currently which is Cinnamon, and the packages I need. I could help doing this, also with Mate. Not with other DE's, no experience.

Daedalus doesn't boot from Ventoy, so a bootable separate stick is required.

Khylsdrak

Member

Registered: 2025-04-19

Posts: 12  

Re: Minimalist/selective installation?

@fsmithred, @rolfie : thanks, I get it ! it was unclear to me but with your insights I understand better.