The release of the Devuan 4.0 "Chimaera" distribution, a fork of Debian GNU/Linux without the systemd init system, has been announced. This new branch notably transitions to the package base of Debian 11 "Bullseye". Live builds and installation ISO images are prepared for AMD64, i386, armel, armhf, arm64, and ppc64el architectures.
The project has created branches for around 400 Debian packages that have been modified to remove dependencies on systemd, for rebranding, or for adapting to the specific features of the Devuan infrastructure. Two packages (devuan-baseconf, jenkins-debian-glue-buildenv-devuan) are only available in Devuan and are related to repository configuration and the build system's operation. Otherwise, Devuan is fully compatible with Debian and can be used as a basis for creating specialized Debian builds without systemd. Devuan-specific packages can be downloaded from the repository packages.devuan.org.
The default desktop is based on Xfce and the Slim display manager. Optionally, KDE, MATE, Cinnamon, LXQt, and LXDE can be installed. It uses the classic SysVinit initialization system instead of systemd, as well as optional openrc and runit systems. There is an option to operate without D-Bus, allowing for minimalist desktop configurations using window managers such as blackbox, fluxbox, fvwm, fvwm-crystal, and openbox. For network configuration, a version of NetworkManager not tied to systemd is offered. Instead of systemd-udev, eudev, a fork of udev from the Gentoo project, is used. Consolekit is used for managing user sessions in Xfce and MATE, while elogind, a version of logind not tied to systemd, is used in other desktops.
Changes specific to Devuan 4:
- The transition to the package base of Debian 11 (packages synchronized with Debian 11.1) and Linux kernel 5.10 has been completed.
- The option to use the init systems sysvinit, runit, and OpenRC is provided.
- A new theme for the boot splash screen, login manager, and desktop has been added.
- Support for the display managers gdm3 and sddm has been implemented, in addition to Slim.
- The option to use all desktop environments available in Debian without systemd has been provided. Support for LXDE has been added.
- For individuals with vision impairments, voice assistance during the installation process has been made available, and support for Braille display devices has been added.
Source: opennet.ru
