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#1 Today 11:43:30

DavidMontaro0331
Member
Registered: Today
Posts: 2  

How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I want to build my own distro based on Devuan. I’ve previously used Debian’s live-build tool to create a distribution for my personal use. I noticed Devuan has an SDK for building derivative distributions. Is it user-friendly? Can it be used on Debian?

I’m aiming to make a lightweight distribution with the Trinity Desktop Environment. Are there any guides available for this? Thank you very much for your help!

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#2 Today 11:58:51

tux_99
Member
Registered: 2025-06-17
Posts: 169  

Re: How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan

You might want to check out Exe GNU Linux before wasting your time doing what already exists:
https://exegnulinux.net/


“Either the users control the program – or the program controls the users” Richard Stallman

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#3 Today 12:06:53

DavidMontaro0331
Member
Registered: Today
Posts: 2  

Re: How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan

Sorry, the reason I’m doing this is that the lightweight Linux distributions I’ve tried have poor localization support for my language… I want everything to work out of the box as much as possible.
Thanks anyway for the advice. I’ll give it a try when I have time.

(Addendum: I've tried Puppy Linux, Porteus Linux and antiX Linux.)

Last edited by DavidMontaro0331 (Today 12:09:04)

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#4 Today 12:25:43

fsmithred
Administrator
Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 2,998  

Re: How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan

Devuan's live-sdk is probably a little less user-friendly than live-build. I believe it is possible to use live-sdk with debian, but you would need to look through the scripts to change some URLs. It's also possible to use live-build with devuan - there have been a couple of re-spins that use it. (See Crows for example).

Another method is to use refractasnapshot to make a live iso that's a copy of your installed system with all your software choices and settings. You could install in a VM or on hardware for this to work. This way will also work with Debian. If Exe GNU is close to what you want, you could start with that and modify what you want. Although if you really want debian, you probably should start fresh with debian. I don't know if anyone has migrated a devuan system to debian.

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#5 Today 13:02:50

dzz
Member
From: Exmouth, South West England
Registered: 2016-12-01
Posts: 124  

Re: How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan

If all 73 TDE language packs were included, the Exe Gnu ISO would be a bloated monster!

tde-i18n-af-trinity - Afrikaans (af) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ar-trinity - Arabic (ar) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-az-trinity - Azerbaijani (az) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-be-trinity - Belarusian (be) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-bg-trinity - Bulgarian (bg) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-bn-trinity - Bengali (bn) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-br-trinity - Breton (br) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-bs-trinity - Bosnian (bs) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ca-trinity - Catalan (ca) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-cs-trinity - Czech (cs) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-csb-trinity - Kashubian (csb) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-cy-trinity - Welsh (cy) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-da-trinity - Danish (da) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-de-trinity - German (de) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-el-trinity - Greek (el) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-engb-trinity - English (British) (en_GB) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-eo-trinity - Esperanto (eo) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-es-trinity - Spanish (es) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-esar-trinity - Spanish (Argentina) (es_AR) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-et-trinity - Estonian (et) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-eu-trinity - Basque (eu) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-fa-trinity - Persian (fa) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-fi-trinity - Finnish (fi) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-fr-trinity - French (fr) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-fy-trinity - Frisian (fy) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ga-trinity - Irish (ga) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-gl-trinity - Galician (gl) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-he-trinity - Hebrew (he) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-hi-trinity - Hindi (hi) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-hr-trinity - Croatian (hr) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-hu-trinity - Hungarian (hu) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ia-trinity - Interlingua (ia) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-is-trinity - Icelandic (is) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-it-trinity - Italian (it) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ja-trinity - Japanese (ja) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-kk-trinity - Kazakh (kk) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-km-trinity - Khmer (km) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ko-trinity - Korean (ko) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-lt-trinity - Lithuanian (lt) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-lv-trinity - Latvian (lv) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-mk-trinity - Macedonian (mk) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-mn-trinity - Mongolian (mn) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ms-trinity - Malay (ms) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-nb-trinity - Norwegian Bokmål (nb) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-nds-trinity - Low Saxon (nds) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-nl-trinity - Dutch (nl) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-nn-trinity - Norwegian Nynorsk (nn) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-pa-trinity - Punjabi (pa) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-pl-trinity - Polish (pl) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-pt-trinity - Portuguese (pt) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ptbr-trinity - Portuguese (Brazil) (pt_BR) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ro-trinity - Romanian (ro) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ru-trinity - Russian (ru) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-rw-trinity - Kinyarwanda (rw) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-se-trinity - Northern Sami (se) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-sk-trinity - Slovak (sk) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-sl-trinity - Slovenian (sl) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-sr-trinity - Serbian (sr) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-srlatin-trinity - Serbian Latin (sr@Latn) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ss-trinity - Swati (ss) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-sv-trinity - Swedish (sv) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-ta-trinity - Tamil (ta) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-te-trinity - Telugu (te) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-tg-trinity - Tajik (tg) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-th-trinity - Thai (th) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-tr-trinity - Turkish (tr) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-uk-trinity - Ukrainian (uk) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-uz-trinity - Uzbek (uz) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-uzcyrillic-trinity - Uzbek (Cyrillic) (uz@cyrillic) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-vi-trinity - Vietnamese (vi) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-wa-trinity - Walloon (wa) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-zhcn-trinity - Chinese (Simplified) (zh_CN) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE
tde-i18n-zhtw-trinity - Chinese (Traditional) (zh_TW) internationalized (i18n) files for TDE

If you want other than English or Spanish, simply install it yourself, enable it in your user session, then run

dpkg-reconfigure locales

Yes, you could install Exe Gnu, add your chosen language pack (and whatever other changes you want) then roll up a new ISO using (preinstalled) Refracta Snapshot..

Last edited by dzz (Today 13:09:17)

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#6 Today 15:41:43

greenjeans
Member
Registered: 2017-04-07
Posts: 1,770  
Website

Re: How can I create my own Linux distribution based on Devuan

Hi, I highly recommend Fsmithred's suggestion to use Refracta-Snapshot and Refracta-Installer to make your own iso(s), have used this method for 10 years now, very easy to use and you can really fine-tune the system for the language support you want, and all other aspects including additional hardware support if you need it. Good luck!


https://sourceforge.net/projects/vuu-do/ Vuu-do GNU/Linux, Devuan-based Openbox systems.
Devuan 6 mate-mini iso, pure Devuan, 100% no-vuu-do. Now with Xlibre as well.
Please donate to support Devuan and init freedom! https://devuan.org/os/donate
https://devuanusers.com/ Apps source : https://git.devuan.org/greenjeans

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