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Manessa

Member

Registered: 2024-03-22

Posts: 3  

Where to view system requirements Devuan

Hello everyone, I have a question. I'm new to Linux, and I can't find the system requirements for Devuan.

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,407  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

Well "Devuan" is actually like a warehouse of software rather than a particular distribution so it all depends on which particular setup you want to have. The most recent "excalibur netinstall", which provides a range of distribution choices with the most recent software, will want at least 800 Mb RAM to run and would comfortably install most of its graphical desktop environments on an 8 Gb disk. Though, today one will want at least 20 Gb disk to be somewhat "future proof".

Almost all software is compiled for several architectures, including both 32-bit and 64 architectures. In debian parlance they have names like i386, amd64, armel, armhf, arm64, risc64, ppc64el etc.

The keyword is "Choice".

Devarch

Member

Registered: 2022-10-03

Posts: 95  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

They are the same as for debian.
They are like
    RAM: 2 GB or more.
    CPU: Dual-core processor of minimum 1GHz clock speed.
    Storage: At least 20GB of disk space.
    USB drive: 8 GB or above.

But it depends on use case. For example, to browse thhe web you cannot live with 2 Gb of RAM. The modern web is broken and resource hungry.
So, it depends.

Last edited by Devarch (2025-06-23 22:47:52)

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 474  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

It can run on less, but, 4GB ram & 2GHz processor will likely be the minimum you would want to use.

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 944  

Website

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

13 year old laptop here, dual-core APU that claims 1 ghz but really runs about 800 mhz. 4 gb of ram.

Runs Devuan like a champ!

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tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 2  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

I thought I would add my question here as it's the same topic:
what are Devuans plans with regards to the minimum required x86-64 microarchitecture level? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Mi … ure_levels
I hope Devuan is not going to follow IBM/Rehat which introduced the x86-64-v2 requirement for RHEL8 and more recently the x86-64-v3 requirement for RHEL10.
AFAIK Suse has introduced similar requirements and Ubuntu is planning to do the same.

I still have multiple systems based on AMD Phenom II X4 and X6 processors (and one with an Intel Core2Quad cpu) which are all x86-64-v1 but are still perfectly usable (the are equipped with 8 GB and one with 16 GB of ECC RAM) so I hope that by migrating them to Devuan I can still continue using them for many years (not just with Excalibur but also after that).

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-06-24 16:48:55)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,650  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

Where do you see that a minimum microarchitecture level is required?

Follow is not really the right word - we use most of their packages without changing them. Only packages that require systemd are either excluded or forked to remove that dependency. When we say that devuan is debian without systemd, we mean it literally.

tux_99

Member

Registered: 2025-06-17

Posts: 2  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

Where do you see that a minimum microarchitecture level is required?

With regards to Redhat and Suse it's specified on their websites:

Suse:
https://en.opensuse.org/X86-64_microarchitecture_levels

OpenSUSE developers decided to use x86-64-v2 microarchitecture level for Leap 16.0 instead of x86-64-v3, which is used for SUSE SLE 16

Redhat:
https://access.redhat.com/articles/rhel-limits

Red Hat has upgraded the instruction set architecture (ISA) baseline to x86-64-v3 microarchitecture level in RHEL 10. See Deprecation of x86-64-v1 and x86-64-v2 x86_64 microarchitecture CPUs in RHEL9 / x86-64-v3 is required by RHEL10 and Exploring x86-64-v3 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 for more details.

Ubuntu AFAIK has so far only stated that they are thinking about it.

Follow is not really the right word - we use most of their packages without changing them.

So basically if Debian decided to make x86-64-v2 or v3 the minimum requirement then the same would apply to Devuan?
That's bad news as I have a feeling Debian will follow Redhat fairly soon (especially since apparently quite a few influential Debian Devs are Redhat employees, that's at least what I read).

I consider this a very bad development, it's basically forced obsolescence (not unlike what MS did with Win11) of older but still very usable hardware and in developing countries this hardware is still very widely in use.

Basically it destroys the widely held belief that Linux is perfect for giving old PCs which are no longer supported by proprietary OSes a second life.

Of course Redhat/IBM and Suse don't care about this, their customers don't use old hardware, but non profit distros should take this into account.

Last edited by tux_99 (2025-06-24 19:03:49)

zapper

Member

Registered: 2017-05-29

Posts: 1,028  

Re: Where to view system requirements Devuan

if you want a window manager and a web browser like palemoon, you might only need 1GB of ram.

But then again, I know more people prefer flashy DEs, so there's that.

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