Devuan is an

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Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

-based

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

that aims to maintain compatibility with other

init In Unix-based computer operating systems, init (short for ''initialization'') is the first process started during booting of the operating system. Init is a daemon process that continues running until the system is shut down. It is the direc ...

systems and avoid lock-in by systemd. Devuan offers sysvinit, runit or OpenRC as alternatives to systemd.

History

With the release of Debian 8, some developers and users felt alienated due to the project's adoption of systemd and subsequent removal of support for other existing init systems. This decision prompted some Debian community members to start a fork of Debian without systemd. Instead of continuing the Debian practice of using

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...

character names as release codenames, Devuan aliases its releases using planet names. The first stable release shared the Debian 8 codename '' Jessie''. However, the Devuan release was named for minor planet 10464. The first stable release of Devuan was published on May 25, 2017. Devuan 2.0.0 ''ASCII'' was released on June 9, 2018, and 2.1 ''ASCII'' was released on November 21, 2019. ASCII provides a choice of five different

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

s at install time (

XFCE Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...

Cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

LXQt LXQt is a free and open-source software, free and open source lightweight desktop environment. It was formed from the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects. Like its GTK predecessor LXDE, LXQt does not ship or develop its own window manager ...

, MATE), while many other window managers are available from the repositories. It also provides installation options for choosing between sysvinit and OpenRC for

, and between GRUB and LILO for the

boot loader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer and booting an operating system. If it also provides an interactive menu with multiple boot choices then it's o ...

. Devuan maintains a modified version of the Debian expert text installer, which has the ability to install only

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

if the user chooses, while the live desktop image also uses a custom graphical installer from Refracta, a derivative of Devuan. Devuan 3.0 Beowulf was released on June 3, 2020, based on Debian 10.4. Ppc64el has been added to the list of supported architectures. Runit is now available as an alternative init. Eudev and elogind are now used to replace some Systemd functionality. Devuan 4.0 Chimaera was released on October 14, 2021. It is based on Debian Bullseye (11.1) with Linux kernel 5.10. Devuan 5.0 Daedalus was released on August 15, 2023. It is based on Debian Bookworm (12.1) with Linux kernel 6.1. The current testing suite with code name Excalibur is planned for 2025+. It is based on Debian Trixie (13) with Linux kernel 6.10.

Packages

Devuan has its own package repository which mirrors upstream Debian, with local modifications made only when needed to allow for

systems other than systemd. Devuan does not provide systemd in its repositories but still retains libsystemd0 until it has removed all dependencies. Amprolla is the program used to merge Debian packages with Devuan packages. It downloads packages from Debian and merges changes to packages that Devuan overrides. According to Repology the number of packages in Devuan 4.0 is less but close to Debian Stable (13); the Devuan unstable is almost identical to Debian unstable in terms of the number of packages.

Derivatives

In August 2022, Peppermint OS announced the release of Devuan-based ISOs, alongside their Debian-based ISOs. Exe GNU/Linux is a Devuan derivative (since 2017) featuring the Trinity Desktop Environment and another LXDE version. Star is another Devuan-based Linux distribution featuring several lightweight window managers, such as Openbox, Fluxbox, JWM, and i3.

Version history

Source:

Notes

References

External links

*
Devuan home pageSource code repositoryRelease archive
{{Linux-distro Debian-based distributions Linux distributions Linux distributions without systemd