1. Devuan GNU+Linux “Excalibur”: Debian 13 “Trixie” without systemd

• All in one pot: Devuan follows Debian’s /usr merge
• Like BSDs: classic /run/utmp instead of systemd-login
• Devuan follows Debian towards architectural monoculture
• Solid like Debian, but less complex

The Veteran UNIX Admins have released version 6.0 of their distribution Devuan GNU+Linux, codename Excalibur. Devuan is a fork of Debian GNU/Linux 13 “Trixie”, which is primarily distinguished by its consistent avoidance of the systemd init system. Like Debian, Devuan 6.0 also relies on the Linux LTS kernel 6.12 and otherwise offers an almost identical software scope. Instead of the all-encompassing systemd framework, Devuan classically uses the more transparent init systems SysVinit, OpenRC, or Runit.

For some desktop environments, especially GNOME 48, which is heavily tied to systemd, developers had to make adjustments and to emulate certain systemd functions to ensure compatibility. Devuan ships Xfce as the default desktop. In addition, GNOME, KDE Plasma, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, LXQt, and various lightweight window managers are available, among others.

All in one pot: Devuan follows Debian’s /usr merge

One of the most striking changes for existing Devuan users is likely Debian’s step into the modern system architecture called “merged-/usr”. This involves moving the contents of the directories /bin, /sbin, and /lib from the root directory into the corresponding directories in /usr. The old paths are retained as symbolic links, so that bash, for example, can be called via both /bin/bash and the new /usr/bin/bash. A more consistent and probably safer approach would be to not do things by halves and remove /{bin,sbin,lib} entirely.

The separation, incidentally, dates back to old Unix times when, due to lack of space, the operating system had to be installed on one hard drive. The large /usr directory had to be installed on a second hard drive or via NFS on a server. FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD still use this division, but for a different reason. The directories directly under / contain all files and tools that are absolutely necessary for starting and basic operation of a minimal base system. All further optional programs that are not necessary for startup or basic administration are located in /usr/{bin,sbin,lib}.

Depending on your perspective, this separation has advantages because, for example, access rights can be more finely granulated. In the age of Sun’s ZFS, one of the disadvantages, the hard partitioning required during installation, is no longer an issue. Throwing everything into one pot and not creating /home separately, for example, might be the better, because easier to understand, solution. Both approaches work well if you can and want to work with them.

Like BSDs: classic /run/utmp instead of systemd-login

Devuan 6.0 maintains support for logging logins in /run/utmp. Originally, GNU/Linux distributions stored the login time as a 32-bit time_t in seconds since January 1, 1970 (Unix Epoch). On January 19, 2038, at 03:14:07 UTC, this would lead to an overflow with exciting and unpredictable problems. As a solution for parts of the Linux community, there is systemd-login, which internally manages session data in 64-bit format in systemd-specific structures in various directories and text formats.

Since Devuan GNU+Linux does not use systemd, it still relies on /run/utmp here. The Veteran UNIX Administrators do not see this as too big a problem and assume that Devuan 6.0 Excalibur will no longer be in use long before 2038 (EoL). Thus, the solution to the problem is postponed to the future.

The BSDs, i.e., FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, have always used /run/utmp for current logins, /var/log/wtmp for login history information, and /var/log/lastlog for the time of each user’s last login. Years ago, the issue was recognized there and consistently resolved by switching /run/utmp & Co to a 64-bit time_t format – this also applies to 32-bit architectures such as i386 or ARMv7. For the eventual necessary transition to 128-bit time_t, the BSD developers thus have some time... more precisely: until Sunday, December 292,277,026,596, 15:30:08 UTC.

Devuan follows Debian towards architectural monoculture

Following the example of Debian GNU/Linux, the Devuan developers also no longer offer an installation ISO for the 32-bit x86 platform. The move away from “i386” is misleading, as with other GNU/Linux distributions, because the Intel 80386 (i386) has long been unsupported – at least an i486, i686, or usually an i686 (Pentium Pro compatible) is necessary. There are several good reasons for this: CMPXCHG or CMPXCHG8B as instructions for atomic operations (e.g., thread locking, atomic counters, spinlocks), CMOVcc for conditional assignments, the Page Global Bit (PGE), or instruction set extensions like MMX and SSE/SSE2.

Anyone who absolutely wants to run their nostalgic favorite with GNU/Linux must therefore resort to distributions such as Alpine Linux, MX Linux, Puppy Linux, Q4OS, or the slightly dusty antiX. The latter even adds to the topic of init diversity compared to Devuan: In its “2025 remaster edition”, it offers the freely selectable init systems SysVinit, OpenRC, Runit, s6-rc, s6-66, and dinit. Ultimately, it might be better to consider switching to the lightweight NetBSD/i386, which, however, also requires an i486, but supports PCMCIA, VL-Bus, EISA, MCA and ISA (AT-bus) as well as 52 other architectures.

Solid like Debian, but less complex

Devuan GNU+Linux was forked from Debian at the end of 2014. The main goal of the project is to offer a variant of Debian without the complexity, dependencies, and security vulnerabilities of systemd. The systemd framework was designed by software developer Lennart Poettering, who now works for Microsoft, and has been implemented in almost all Linux distributions.

The current Devuan GNU+Linux 6.0 Excalibur contains almost all innovations of Debian GNU/Linux 13 “Trixie”, apart from systemd – one exception, for example, is that there is no RISC-V port (yet). Images for installation are now available for free on the project page for amd64 (and no longer for i386) available. In addition to a netinst image, which requires an active internet connection, there are various CD images and a DVD that includes several desktop variants. The developers also offer a minimal live image as a recovery system and a live desktop including pre-installed “non-free-firmware”.

Many important links can be found in the announcement of Devuan GNU+Linux 6.0 “Excalibur” in the project’s forum. The next Devuan release, 7.0, will be codenamed “Freia” and will be based on Debian 14.

(mki)

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This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.