Devuan 6 (Excalibur) installation notes #1 - acceptable computing environment ASAP Last updated : 13/6/2026 Changelog : - 13/6/2026 - Added asterisks on certain debloated packages, marking them as optional (at least for me). - 12/6/2026 - Replaced pulseaudio for pipewire (pipewire, pipewire-alsa, wireplumber). Enable its autostart entry and disable PulseAudio's. - 10/6/2026 - New issue : brightness management not working. - 6/6/2026 - Initial commit. - I only document the steps I took to get me a tolerable computing environment in Devuan here. The madness of getting GTK2 XFCE... maybe someday. Or until someone else made a reproducible guide that we can attempt to reproduce ourselves (the one . + ISO : netinstall (or desktop if I downloaded it before I dove to Devuan) + Installation prep - Connect computer to ethernet & USB loaded with Devuan ISO. Also ensure reliable electricity. - Boot Devuan ISO (on T470 it was F12 to boot menu, then selecting the disk with said Devuan ISO) + Installation notes from the install wizard (relevant parts only as everything else are changed according to necessity or left stock) - Partitioning : Guided - use the entire disk (an option to set up encrypted lvm also exists somewhere under this option for fulldisk encryption) - Partitioning scheme : separate /home, /var, /tmp. - result of automatic partitioning (256GB nvme0n1) - 1GB ESP /boot - 20.2GB ext4 / - 7.3GB ext4 /var - 4.2GB swap - 3.0GB ext4 /tmp - 220.4GB ext4 /home - 335.4KB free - popcon (Popularity Contest) : opt-out by default - Software to install : only xfce. - Init : sysvinit Last step - reboot (select preselected "continue"). + Additional notes on the installer - GRUB bootloader installed by default, with no options to change bootloaders as desired in the installer. - The "expert mode" simply allowed you to pick the install steps. It does not let you get alternative bootloaders, at least without accessing the terminal. + Post-install bullshit - Enter virtual terminal (ctrl+alt+f1) - login as root. - # nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99norecommend (prevent apt from installing "recommended" and "suggested" packages without explicit command) APT::Install-Recommends "0"; APT::Install-Suggests "0"; - # apt remove accountsservice bluez bluetooth cron cups cups-client cups-common cups-pk-helper enchant-2 exfalso firefox-esr* imagemagick-7-common javascript-common libgtk-4-1 libgtk-4-bin libgtk-4-common libgtk-4-media-gstreamer libgtkmm-4.0-0 libreoffice-(calc,draw,impress,math,word)* mate-polkit modemmanager pavucontrol pkexec* pulseaudio quodlibet sudo synaptic* systemd-standalone-sysusers vim-common vim-tiny xfce4-goodies xsane xsane-common xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-qxl xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware xterm - # apt install doas fonts-font-fontawesome fonts-lato geany gimp gnome-themes-extra network-manager-applet nm-connection-editor opendoas parole pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pragha ristretto wireplumber xfce-polkit xfce4-screenshooter - # apt autoremove - # rm -rf /etc/cron.d - # rm -rf /etc/cron.daily - # rm -rf /etc/cron.hourly - # rm -rf /etc/cron.monthly - # rm -rf /etc/crontab - # rm -rf /etc/cron.weekly - # rm -rf /etc/cron.yearly - # rm -rf /etc/firefox-esr - # rm -rf /etc/sudo.conf - # rm -rf /etc/sudoers - # rm -rf /etc/sudoers.d - # rm -rf /etc/sudo_logsrvd.conf - # rm -rf /etc/systemd - # rm -rf /etc/init.d/bluetooth - # rm -rf /etc/init.d/cron - # rm -rf /etc/init.d/cups - # rm -rf /etc/init.d/cups-browsed - # rm -rf /etc/init.d/sudo + attempted additional debloating (and fails, notes, etc.) - anacron : Attempting to remove it after removing cron caused apt to try reinstalling cron & systemd-standalone-sysusers. I guess I've reached rock bottom on what I could trim without it backfiring on me. - firefox-esr : Pale Moon - instructions for packaged installs at https://kannegieser.net/palemoon/ though I am yet to try it out. - libreoffice-(calc,draw/impress,math,word) : I preferred GIMP over libreoffice-draw, which also depends on libreoffice-impress. And I don't even use libreoffice-math. Not sure on the other LibreOffice components, but I don't really use them that much. And it is kind of nice Debian/Devuan packaged LibreOffice kind of separately (in Arch/Artix you have the entire libreoffice suite with no control over what you don't want, at least without recompiling) so we can install / uninstall whichever part we want. - pavucontrol : Daedalus & lower provides GTK3 builds of pavucontrol. # nano /etc/apt/sources.list (add Daedalus (or lower) entries to sources.list) # apt-get update # apt-get install pavucontrol=5.0-2 (or whatever lower you want to get as long as its matching repositories are enabled) - pulseaudio : fucking good riddance. Thank all that is holy, slapping pipewire in its place is seamless after a reboot. - pkexec and synaptic : I'm used to terminal-based package management. - sudo for doas (actually opendoas), vimlibs for preinstalled nano. + Awesome XFCE themes I wish I had installed back in Arch/Artix (requires gtk2-engines-pixbuf but I had no regrets installing it) - # apt install darkblood-gtk-theme darkcold-gtk-theme darkfire-gtk-theme darkmint-gtk-theme DarkFire theme got really close to my personal website theme. Nice. Shout-out to originalseed for the original darkcold & darkmint; as well as infinity0 for darkblood & darkfire. + Known issues (T470) - Brightness control buttons (fn+f5, fn+f6) not working while audio control buttons (fn+[f1-f4]) work. # dmesg | grep thinkpad_acpi (at least the parts relating to display - applies to both Artix & Devuan; though on the former I can change display brightness) : thinkpad_acpi: This ThinkPad has standard ACPI backlight brightness control, supported by the ACPI video driver Disabling thinkpad-acpi brightness events by default... + Workaround (brightnessctl via terminal) : # apt install brightnessctl (if not installed) $ brightnessctl -l (for display ID) # brightnessctl -d intel_backlight set (display brightness percent)