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marma-lade

Member

Registered: 2023-05-24

Posts: 11  

any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Now that Debian 13 has been released, I'm impatient to get an Excalibur ISO. I've been burned by migrating from one Devuan version to another, so I'm not thrilled about changing sources.list to get it. Is an ISO available?

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,796  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Hello:

... impatient to get an Excalibur ISO.

OK ...  8^°

... burned by migrating ...

Rare ...
But not unheard of.

... ISO available?

Have you tried checking for info in the usual places? eg: here.

That said and with your not wanting to risk a dist-upgrade, you may want to consider having a go at the recently uploaded netinstall.iso (20250809) and see how you fare with it.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2025-08-10 22:17:29)

marma-lade

Member

Registered: 2023-05-24

Posts: 11  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Thanks for the response, Altoid.

My "burning" was trying to do a migration from Debian to Devuan. It left me with an unbootable system. No big deal, I always make back-ups.

I tried searching for an ISO, but clearly my searching skills need work.

I will try building a system with that ISO tomorrow.

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,796  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Hello:

Thanks ...

You're welcome.

... "burning" was trying to do a migration from Debian ...

I see.
A bit trickier than Devuan to Devuan
Have heard that it is doable but never had to go there.

... always make back-ups.

The only way.

... try building a system with that ISO ...

If you have a bit of experience, can follow instructions and know what sort of system you want, the netinstall option is the best one.
You get to install exactly what you want.

Excluding unneeded recommends and avoiding choices made for you by the one size fits all packaging system makes for a win-win.
eg:
No need for exim4 as the default MTA in a desktop system.
Replacing it with DMA (DragonFly mail agent) is just one of many examples.

Start small / basic on a spare disk and build on that while keeping a log.
It will be very useful in the future.

When you are done, you can clone your Devuan system to your main HDD. 

Do let us know how you fared.

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2025-08-10 23:26:28)

marma-lade

Member

Registered: 2023-05-24

Posts: 11  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Well, Excalibur is not ready for prime-time just yet. On the first page, I was given a "missing firmware" or something to that effect. But then during the initial access to the mirror, the installation failed because it could not get there (the first option). So I need to wait until the regular release.

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 1,090  

Website

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Hang tight marma-lade for a while and i'll post an updated Un-official Excalibur iso, I make them using the Mate desktop though, so it might now be what you want, and again it is NOT official Devuan.

I should have a new one up later tonight or early tomorrow, the last one in testing is only a month old, but looks like there's over 100 updates plus a new kernel that will go into this one.

---

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

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,796  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Hello:

... Excalibur is not ready for prime-time ...

If it is in the repository, it is because it has been tested and works.
Otherwise it would not be there.

... "missing firmware" or something to that effect.

I take it you do not have a wired connection available?
ie: ethernet

From https://www.devuan.org/os/install:

Non-free firmware

Non-free firmware packages are available on all install media. These packages will only be installed if required by your wifi adapter. To avoid the automatic installation and loading of needed non-free firmware, choose the Expert install option during the installation process.

The desktop-live and minimal-live images have non-free firmware packages pre-installed. These packages may be removed after boot using the remove_firmware.sh script available under /root.

Best,

A.

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,453  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

@marma-lade: did you by chance opt for "expert" install, and then skipped the "load additional components" step?

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 1,090  

Website

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

Up now. This does not have all possible firmware you might need, this is basically vanilla Devuan, the only firmware I have added is for AMD graphics as my machine would not boot properly without it,

https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do … te-mini-6/

---

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

EDX-0

Member

Registered: 2020-12-12

Posts: 132  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

I'm not thrilled about changing sources.list

fair, kinda the reason why i wrote this script to add mirrors so i would never have to manually edit the sources list

https://github.com/eylles/devuan-script … mirrors.sh

mind you i have not updated it yet to reflect the current stable and testing suite names as devuan's excalibur suite is not yet the stable release, usually devuan lags weeks to months behind a debian release to make the next suite stable as it takes some time to not just refresh the patches from forked projects but also check that all the work done to keep systemd outside devuan works as intended even if testing is usable at the time (been using devuan testing on my main machine since late 2023)

you can use the script to update your sources list (add mirrors is always good), then upgrade, i have to eventually add support for the deb822 format for those that do want that it.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,681  

Re: any way to obtain Excalibur ISO?

The live-isos have wireless firmware installed. This one is new:
https://files.devuan.org/devuan_excalib … p-live.iso

sha256sum:
667f3e82469a36aa95bcbe11db67fbd96ea59ec41c66f96407d1334033db2658  devuan_excalibur_6.0-preview-2025-08-13_0014_amd64_desktop-live.iso

Almost forgot to mention:
That early screen that asks you to insert a usb with firmware can often be ignored, and the firmware package will be installed later in the installation process (unless you select expert install and tell it not to install the firmware).