Please add Devuan Images (using Debian as template)

[codewinch]

As an OVHcloud customer using currently eight dedicated servers, I want Devuan Linux (https://devuan.org), which is as close to a systemd-free Debian as possible, and should be able to be achieved using the same exact scripts as current Debian, so that: we can deploy Devuan on our servers because it's much more difficult/impossible to convert afterward (replacing pid 0), and we have too many servers (growing all the time) to do it by hand. Devuan is exactly Debian but just a bit more stable, easier-to-debug, and more secure when deployed with runit or openrc.

[tfvg]

Hello, I have a VPS so my situation might be different, anyway: with devuan chimaera I could install debian 11 on the vps and follow the instructions on devuan site to transform it into devuan.

With devuan daedalus and debian 12 it did not work.

So an option might be to install debian 11, install devuan chimaera on it, and upgrade it to daedalus.

Another option, getting devuan using debootstrap: I installed debian on the vps, installed the deb package of debootstrap taken from devuan, made a dir to be used as chroot, copied /boot in chroot/boot so to reuse kernel and grub without reinstallation (be careful about updates though), created from scratch an chroot/etc/network/interfaces using ip addr ip route and data in ovh dashboard, set up the rest according to normal debootstrap instructions (created fstab, entered the chroot, installed essential packages, set up locales, config keyboard just in case it's needed - I dunno), installed ssh server, then used rescue mode to switch the files from the chroot to the normal root and vice versa.

Third option, try to fix devuan12 to daedalus transition, which I failed probably because I didn't mind about network settings, since when performing the transition 11->chimaera I did not need to touch them at all. Only when I went the debootstrap route I noticed OVH Debian 12 vps has no /etc/network/interfaces file (always reinventing the wheel, thank you systemd, thank you poettering, thank you redhat).

OK HTH GLHF

[tfvg]

Just to be precise wrt my previous msg, I had also to copy lib/modules* to the chroot other than the /boot directory

[grapagnani]

Hello, it is possible to upgrade an OVH Debian 12 VPS to Devuan 5 Daedalus by following the step-by-step guide found on Devuan website: "Migrate from Debian Bookworm to Daedalus". However some steps are required to configure the network interface, before doing any reboot of the VPS:

Once you have performed the apt-get install -fstep as instructed in the Devuan migration guide, do these steps before doing the reboot:

1. install the package ifupdown: root@devuan:~# apt-get install ifupdown

2. At the top of the file /etc/network/interfaces, add the lines: auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp

3. Tweak the line of kernel parameters in order to avoid the renaming of the network interface from eth0 to ensX. In the file /etc/default/grub, add net.ifnames=0 parameter to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX variable. The resulting line will look similar to this: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 earlyprintk=ttyS0,115200 consoleblank=0 net.ifnames=0" and update the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg with the new kernel parameter, by simply running: root@devuan:~# update-grub

4. An optional step that I recommend is the configuration of the console keymap. If you loose network connectivity, you always have the possibility to open a console to your VPS from OVH control panel, and it is easier when the correct keyboard mapping is configured. Simply run: # apt-get install console-setup

5. Remove the file /etc/resolv.conf: root@devuan:~# rm /etc/resolv.conf

6. You can now proceed with the reboot. The VPS should rapidly be reachable again on the network. If domain names resolution doesn't work, remove again the file /etc/resolv.conf and reboot again.

Once up, the VPS is ready to perform the final steps of the migration to Devuan Daedalus.