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Devuan 6.0 “Excalibur” Released – Your Systemd-Free Debian 13 System

init freedom

Less than three months after the official release of Debian 13 “Trixie,” the Devuan project has officially launched Devuan 6.0 “Excalibur” on November 2nd, 2025.

Excalibur brings all the benefits of Debian 13’s updated packages, modern kernels, and long-term support while staying true to Devuan’s systemd-free philosophy. The release ensures that alternative init systems like sysvinit and runit integrate smoothly, and existing Devuan users can plan upgrades with confidence.

For the Devuan community, this release represents a stable, up-to-date option for both new installations and older hardware users who want the reliability of Debian without systemd. If you’ve been waiting to move to a fresh, modern, yet systemd-free environment, Excalibur is ready to download and install.

Announcment: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=7507

Learn more and download: https://www.devuan.org/os/releases

Debian Trixie: Goodbye Init Freedom

With Trixie, comes changes…

As someone who has been running Debian servers for about a decade, one thing I’ve always appreciated is that if you didn’t like a core component, you could swap it out. That used to include the init system. Whether you preferred sysvinit, OpenRC, or runit, Debian gave you the tools to do it.

With Debian 13 Trixie, that is basically over.

What Changed

To be clear, Debian as defaulted to systemd since Jessie; we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the OPTION to use another system instead. On Bookworm and earlier, moving away from systemd was simple:

apt install sysvinit-core
reboot

You might clean up a few services or install orphan-sysvinit-scripts, but it worked.

In Trixie, too many core packages now assume systemd is there. Udev is the most obvious example. During upgrades, it will pull in systemd even if you’re trying to stay init-free. Other essential packages have dropped their init scripts or unit files for anything else. If you boot without systemd, critical services will fail. The choice exists in theory, but it’s fragile and unsupported in practice.

Why It Is Happening Now??

This isn’t random. Version 13 tightens dependency chains across the core system. Packages such as udev, dbus, logind, and many desktop or network management components are systemd-aware by default. In previous releases, these dependencies were optional or provided fallbacks. In Trixie, the fallback paths are gone or broken. Swapping init now can silently break critical parts of the system.

For Some, Devuan May Finally Make a Lot of Sense

I never really understood why Devuan existed. On Jessie, Buster, Bullseye, and Bookworm, one could do a base install, install their init of choice, reboot, and purge systemd. Devuan always seemed like a convenience for users who wanted to skip that step.

Now, changing init is a literal nightmare. The system doesn’t allow it. You’re forced to boot from another system and attempt the change via chroot. Even then, it’s messy. For those who want a system without systemd, Devuan now has a legitimate place, even for technically inclined users.

Why might one avoid systemd:

Simplicity and predictability: Traditional init systems are easy to debug, less opaque, and don’t pull in a large web of dependencies.
Resource footprint: Sysvinit or OpenRC can run with minimal memory and CPU usage, ideal for very small servers or embedded systems.
Control: Fewer hidden processes and services mean you can strip down and tune exactly what runs at boot.

Reasons to stick with systemd:

Ubiquity: Most packages, especially in Trixie, assume systemd is present. Running without it often leads to breakage or fragile setups.
Service management features: systemd provides dependency-based service startup, logging, timers, and cgroup integration out of the box.
Easier integration with modern software: Many newer server tools and desktop components expect systemd and may not work properly without it.

Systemd Makes Sense for Most Users

For the majority of us, systemd offers clear advantages and a cohesive, performant set of system daemons that do their job reliably. It’s unfortunate, however, that the long tradition of Debian giving users choice in init has essentially come to an end.

For those disappointed by this, Alpine is worth a look. Alpine is a super minimal distribution based on BusyBox. It uses the musl C library and remains impressively small while still offering a well-curated and thorough selection of packages. And of course, Devuan. Devuan is a Debian fork whose claim to fame is being systemd-free. Any packages that would normally depend on systemd have been adjusted or patched for a smooth experience, including things like elogind replacements and tweaks to GNOME dependencies.

Final Thoughts

Debian used to be a super-flexible system that could be stripped down and tuned to run in very small memory footprints. It mostly still is, but with Trixie, it’s just a bit less flexible, and that’s truly too bad. They broke a decades-long tradition.

For those who are really bothered by this, thankfully there is Alpine and Devuan.

Whether you preferred sysvinit, OpenRC, or runit, Debian gave you the tools to do it.

With Debian 13 Trixie, that is basically over.

Debian 13 “Trixie” Officially Released

Trixie Released Today!

Debian 13 “Trixie” is here as of today, August 9, 2025. It’s been a little over two years since Debian 12 “Bookworm” came out on June 10, 2023, and this is one of the most significant stable upgrades in recent memory.

Trixie’s release process followed the usual Debian rhythm. Toolchain freeze hit March 15, soft freeze April 15, hard freeze May 15, full freeze July 27, and now we’re finally at the stable release.

Kernel and Core Changes

Trixie ships with the Linux 6.12 LTS kernel. That brings better hardware support, improved performance, and security hardening. There’s official riscv64 support now, but mipsel is gone. Installer images for i386 and armel have also been dropped. Security hardening has improved on amd64 and arm64, with protection against ROP and COP/JOP attacks. HTTP Boot is now supported out of the box.

KDE Plasma 6 Arrives

When Bookworm launched in 2023 it stuck with Plasma 5.27 LTS because Plasma 6 came out in February 2024 — months after Debian’s freeze. Trixie is the first Debian stable to ship Plasma 6, and for desktop users this could be the single biggest reason to upgrade.

Plasma 6 moves to Qt 6, which improves performance and lowers memory usage. Wayland is now the default with better touch, pen, and gesture support. Fractional scaling works per display, multi-monitor setups are smoother, and there’s early HDR groundwork. Breeze has been refreshed, animations are smoother, and many KDE apps like Dolphin have had major improvements.

GNOME 48

GNOME 48 in Trixie brings a cleaner look, better performance, and refinements across the board. Nautilus has improved search and preview handling. The Settings app has been reorganized for easier navigation. Workspace gestures are more fluid, and core apps integrate better with dark and light modes.

Wayland by Default

Wayland is now the default session for both KDE and GNOME on most hardware. It offers fractional scaling per display, smoother rendering, and improved input handling. PipeWire integration boosts screen recording and streaming performance. NVIDIA proprietary driver support has improved to the point where more users can make Wayland their daily driver. X11 remains available if needed.

Toolchain Updates

GCC is now at 14.2, Python is 3.13, and there are countless package updates. Debian continues its push toward reproducible builds, adds HTTP/3 support in curl, and improves Qt WebEngine with spell-check.

Getting Debian 13

At the time of writing, the main Debian.org “Releases” page hasn’t yet been updated to list Trixie front and center, but the release notes and installers are live. You can grab them directly:

Release notes: https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/
Download: https://www.debian.org/distrib
Package repos: https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/

Utilizing Apt-Cacher-NG’s cache on the server hosting it

apt-get

I’ve been using apt-cacher-ng for a few months now. For those who don’t know, this is a service you can run locally which will proxy apt requests from your network clients. This way, each time a package or update is requested there will be a copy retained in the cache. Upon each subsequent request for the same file(s), the local copy can be served instead. This saves bandwidth, and offers a speed advantage since you’ll likely be getting full GB ethernet line speed on your LAN. Read more about ACNG here.

While several local machines and VMs have no issues using my local ACNG proxy, the server actually hosting ACNG itself seemed to be giving errors when doing an apt update.

You’ll likely see the warnings “503 Server reports unexpected range” as well as “Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.”

Basically, because the machine is trying to proxy through itself, some kind of problem occurs. Now, the simple solution is to just point to the normal Debian mirrors directly. That however wouldn’t offer the benefit of our local cache! The more boxes / VMs pulling for it, the more value you’re getting out of the whole setup… So here’s how we resolve this issue.

Write a text file to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00acng and place the following lines inside:

Acquire::http::Proxy::localhost “DIRECT”;
Acquire::http::Proxy::127.0.0.1 “DIRECT”;
Acquire::http::Proxy::novo.lan “DIRECT”;

Of course, change “novo.lan” to the hostname of your ACNG host. My sources.list looks like this, hence the hostname used in my example.

deb http://novo.lan:3142/deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://novo.lan:3142/deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware

deb http://novo.lan:3142/security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://novo.lan:3142/security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware

deb http://novo.lan:3142/deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://novo.lan:3142/deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware

You may want to add a 4th line, with your actual LAN IP if you’re naming the apt mirror by IP instead.

XScreenSaver on MATE Desktop: Fixing Screen-Lock Key Bind

This is a follow-up to XScreenSaver Install Script for Debian MATE Desktop

Mate Lock Screen — Mate’s Lock Screen Shortcut — This already worked /w my script as-is.

To get working XScreenSaver lock via mate’s default keybind (MOD+L) simply do the following…

We’ll create a small wrapper script at /usr/local/bin/mate-screensaver-command:

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/mate-screensaver-command

Add the following:

#!/bin/bash
if [[ “$1” == “–lock” ]]; then
xscreensaver-command -lock
else
xscreensaver-command “$@”
fi

Then:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/mate-screensaver-command

Running XScreenSaver on a laptop? Let’s run cool…

For most people these days, screensavers have died off.

I still like having them. And while most people have moved on from X.Org on Linux, well… here we are.

The 5300U in my ThinkPad has more than enough GPU power to display some beautiful screensavers. But by default, the system will ramp up into a higher performance state — because normally, that’s exactly what you’d want. Like if you were playing a game, or trying to load some bloated modern website.

But my idle laptop? I don’t want it getting all hot while it’s sitting on my lap or on the bed, just because it’s running a screensaver. So this is my little attempt to fix that — and it’s looking pretty promising.

The idea:

When XScreenSaver runs one of its screen hacks (screensavers), we’ll put the CPU into its lowest available frequency. That way, even when running hardware-accelerated 3D, the system will stay nice and cool.

Fortunately, the author of XScreenSaver — Jamie Zawinski — is a pretty smart dude, and the software already includes a clean little mechanism we can hook into to make this work.

Here’s how I’ve got it set up:

Create a script in your home folder, or wherever you want. xscreensaver_freq_watch.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Save current CPU and GPU max frequencies
CPU_MAX_BEFORE=$(cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq)
GPU_MAX_BEFORE=$(cat /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_max_freq_mhz)

# Watch xscreensaver events
xscreensaver-command -watch | while read -r line
do
case “$line” in
LOCK*)
# Optional: do something on screen lock
;;
UNBLANK*)
echo “Screensaver stopped — restoring frequencies…”
echo $CPU_MAX_BEFORE | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq > /dev/null
echo $GPU_MAX_BEFORE | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_max_freq_mhz > /dev/null
;;
BLANK*)
echo “Screensaver started — limiting frequencies…”
echo 500000 | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq > /dev/null
echo 300 | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_max_freq_mhz > /dev/null
;;
esac
done

Of course, make it exactable with chmod +x. Also, use nopasswd in your /etc/sudoers line for your user.

Now because I’m using MATE / LightDM, I’m going to use a .desktop file. You could do something else, .xinitrc or a systemd service, but this is how I did it.

mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
nano ~/.config/autostart/screensaver-watch.desktop

And inside that, we have the following

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/home/ben/screensaver_freq_watch.sh
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name=Screensaver Frequency Watcher
Comment=Limits CPU and GPU frequencies while the screensaver is running

So far, it’s looking good! You may need to change this a bit depending on your configuration.

Installing Virt-Manager on Debian Without Backend Dependencies

VirtManager
I run several virtual machines on a home server, and this setup works out quite well for a couple of reasons. First, the VMs can run tasks at any time without slowing down the machine I’m actively working on. Second, Virt-Manager is a pretty slick solution—it gives you access to local LXC containers, QEMU virtual machines, or even lets you connect to VMs on another server over SSH.

If you’re just looking for the front-end functionality of Virt-Manager, you might find this interesting: you don’t need to install all the QEMU and libvirt daemon packages!

On Debian Bookworm, when I try to install Virt-Manager, it tells me it’s going to install 107 new packages, using about 220MB of disk space. Now, that’s not a ton of space, but it is quite a few packages. So let’s try a leaner approach:

sudo apt install virt-manager –no-install-recommends

That only pulls in 22 packages, using around 25MB of disk space.

For those who don’t know, the --no-install-recommends option in apt tells it to skip non-essential (recommended) packages when installing software. It still grabs everything needed to run the software, but skips the extras that apt thinks most people might want. Usually, that’s fine—Debian actually splits packages pretty aggressively (and sometimes annoyingly so).

For example, you’ve probably noticed that nearly every package with development tools also has a separate -dev version. Or maybe you’ve seen how xscreensaver is split into four separate packages, even though it’s distributed as a single application by its author.

Oh, and unless you’re exclusively using serial consoles through libvirt, you’ll probably want SPICE support working too! That means installing a couple more packages—just over 2MB extra:

sudo apt install libspice-client-gtk-3.0-5 gir1.2-spiceclientgtk-3.0

Let those install with their normal dependencies and recommended packages—otherwise the SPICE graphical interface won’t function correctly.

Anyway, remember that --no-install-recommends trick—it’ll definitely come in handy someday!

Massive Speed-Upgrade for your Linux infrastructure with AptCacherNG

Cache Diagram — AptCacherNG makes it easy to create a local cache of Debian package mirrors.

If you’ve got multiple machines running the same distribution, APTCacherNG allow for effortless caching of software packages.

I run various distributions, but Debian is probably near the top of that list. Between virtual and physical boxes, I probably have a dozen running Debian. Seriously.

Now, between different versions and architectures you obviously can’t reuse the same packages always; but you don’t need to worry about that. This is something you set up, and then can basically forget about.

Chances are, most instances of your OS are going to be the same version (the current stable release), and the same architecture – usually AMD64.

Not only can you save a ton of bandwidth, but you benefit even more so from the speed up. My internet is about 300 Mbps give or take, but my lan is much faster. The machine I use for caching has nvme storage set aside for the task, and thus is only limited by the speed of the network interface. Even with 1GB, I think you’ll notice a tangible improvement.

It isn’t just for Debian.

Nope, it actually can work with basically anything. I’ve gotten it to work on Alpine with no real effort. I think I may have had to change a line in the config, but it is quite easy.

Under the hood, this is really just web caching. Your clients route their requests through one central machine. Since all requests go through one server, that machine can say “Oh, I just downloaded that for so-and-so an hour ago… here you go!” and forgo an internet download in favor of re-sending the cached copy.

Good for you, you’ll see speed increase no doubt. If you have limited bandwidth, It would be worth doing for even just one or two clients. If you have more than half a dozen or so, I’d say it is a no brainier. It also lowers the strain on the mirrors, which is a good thing too — Especially if you’re in charge of taking care of a whole rack of servers, or perhaps a lab / classroom full of machines.

It’s Easy!

On the clients you have a couple options. For a fresh net-install of Debian, when you go to select the country for your mirror, you want to scroll all the way to the bottom (or top?) and you’ll find “Enter Manually”. Here, you simply furnish your aptcacherng host. In my case, “novo.lan:3142”. Then, just like with debian’s mirror, the rest of the url is the same.

For existing installs, open up /etc/apt/sources.list and replace ftp.debian.org or deb.debian.org with yourmachine.lan:3142 — don’t forget to specify that port. By default, it runs on 3142.

Learn more: https://wiki.debian.org/AptCacherNg

New FOSS Releases for April 2025

FOSS NEWS — April 2025

Figured I’d try something new and cover a few topics at once in a sort of, monthly roundup! We’re midway through April, so this will go over what’s happening this month and shortly thereafter. Naturally, focusing on the projects I am personally most interested in.

Fedora 42 – Releasing April 15th (Tuesday!)

42? The answer to life, the universe and more?? Its not even out yet, at the 42 refrences are already wearing a little thin for me, hah. None the less, Fedora 42 comes out this coming Monday. Some points of interest:

New Anaconda Web UI Installer provides an enhanced, intuitive interface.
Python 3.8 Retirement – Python 3.8 has reached EOL status
KDE Plasma – Now a full-fledged desktop option, not just a “spin” flavor. The KDE special interest group has been working on integrating the latest Plasma applications and testing them for ensured stability.

Debian 13 Trixie – Freeze Timeline

I’ve been running Trixie on my desktop for a few months now, and because it is so close to freeze I have recently decided to put it on my X1 Carbon as well. So far, everything has been fantastic.

Transition and Toolchain Freeze – March 15th (Done)
Soft Freeze – April 15th (This coming Monday)
Hard Freeze – May 15th

The final release date for Debian Trixie is yet to be announced, but it is expected to be around June or August of this year.

Major changes in Debian 13:
Trixie will use the 6.12 LTS kernel
KDE Plasma 6
Addition of official RISC-V 64-bit support
Dropping support for the mipsel architecture
Removal of i386 & armel installers

Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky Puffin

The 25.04 (non-LTS) release of Ubuntu will release on April 17th, with 9 months of standard support.

Plucky Puffin will feature:
Gnome 48 – Improved responsiveness and a new “wellbeing feature”
Wayland continues as default display server
Compiler optimization level changed from -02 to -03 – Aiming to boost execution speeds and performance
Linux Kernel 6.14
ZFS and BTRFS Optimizations – Atomic updates and rollbacks inspired by NixOS are now supported
New Security Center dashboard – Centralized firewall, update and vulnerability management.
Chrony updated for encrypted time sync
Netplan Enhancments now supporting WPA-PSK-SHA256 wifi

The release candidate came out two days ago, and we’ll see the final release on Thursday the 17th.

FreeBSD 14.3 – Releasing in June

I’m definitely looking forward to this release, and we should be seeing BETA releases next month. Final release is scheduled for June 3rd.

14.3 will introduce support for 32-bit UEFI systems; benefiting users with older 32 bit EFI systems which have 64 bit CPUs. Updates to storage controller and network interface drivers are also in the works.

WiFi Improvements
Intel WiFi driver enhancements have been a goal; improving the iwlwifi(4) driver, addressing bugs and adding hardware crypto support.
Work has been done on porting the iwx driver over from OpenBSD to enable 802.11ac and 802.11ax functionality. This driver supports the Intel AX200, AX210 and AX201/AX211 adapters.

The 14.x series has been nothing shy of Impressive when it comes to performance, and I have no doubts that 14.3 will continue to deliver on that front.

Running Windows XP in a VM (April 2025)

I run Linux obviously… and sometimes Wine blows my mind with how good it is. I have several cases lately however, where my mind isn’t exactly… blown…

This was going to be a guide on running VirtualBox 6.0.24 on Debian testing. TLDR; VMWare Workstation is Free for Linux, and is probably a much better idea anyway. Still though, wanted to document the journey.

So… XP as a guest has not been supported by any of the major virtualization solutions for years at this point. Now sure, you can install and run XP just fine on any of them… but 3D acceleration for smooth desktop operation is another story. Today, I’m going to see just how much of a pain in the ass that is – getting a 2019 VirtualBox packaged for Debian Buster… running on Debian Trixie (testing) in 2025.

SPOILER: This didn’t work; if you’re determined though, I’m sure you could get it working. This will get you Vbox installed, and the application runs, but you can’t actually run a VM… in my case anyway. I have a mismatch of Sid/Trixie/Bookworm though, and generally that is bad practice 🙂 See the alternate solution… just scroll down a bit.

If you try and just go for it, you’ll be met in the very least with a message informing you that you system lacks these dependencies:

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of virtualbox-6.0:
virtualbox-6.0 depends on libssl1.1 (>= 1.1.1); however:
Package libssl1.1 is not installed.
virtualbox-6.0 depends on libvpx5 (>= 1.6.0); however:
Package libvpx5 is not installed.
virtualbox-6.0 depends on python (<< 2.8); however:
Package python is not installed.
virtualbox-6.0 depends on python (>= 2.7); however:
Package python is not installed.
virtualbox-6.0 depends on python:any (>= 2.6.6-7~).

You’ll need an older libssl package. libssl1.1_1.1.1n-0+deb10u6_amd64.deb is easily found on Debian’s site, there will be a link at the end of the article too. For me, a simple dpkg -i installed this with 0 problems… So far, so good!

For libvpx5:
wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libv/libvpx/libvpx5_1.7.0-3+deb10u1_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i libvpx5_1.7.0-3+deb10u1_amd64.deb

Now, Python… obviously Python 2 is dead. I first tried this with the python-is-python3 package; I wish this would have worked. The backup plan is installing Python 2.7 from Bullseye, which I’d have liked to avoid.

Steps for Python 2.7…

Download http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libf/libffi/libffi7_3.3-6_amd64.deb
dpkg -i libffi7_3.3-6_amd64.deb

If you’re running as root, you can save time with a single command for the download / install. Here is the next thing we’ll need:

wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/python2.7/libpython2.7-minimal_2.7.18-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb && dpkg -i libpython2.7-minimal_2.7.18-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb

For the next two, I had to tell it to ignore a dependency. “mime-support” is no longer a package, and I have the new version installed, so this should be OK.

Wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/python2.7/libpython2.7-stdlib_2.7.18-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb && sudo dpkg -i –force-depends libpython2.7-stdlib_2.7.18-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb

Again, we have to do that for the actual Python 2.7 package

wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/python2.7/python2.7_2.7.18-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb && dpkg -i –force-depends python2.7_2.7.18-8+deb11u1_amd64.deb

At this point, I removed python-is-python3, since we don’t want to be trying to run python2 code on python3 when we have 2.7 installed; so apt remove –purge python-is-python3

VirtualBox will still complain about missing python. Oh well. Use the Force!

sudo dpkg -i –force-depends virtualbox-6.0_6.0.24-139119~Debian~buster_amd64.deb

At this point, Virtualbox was indeed installed however there were problems finishing the setup. Something to do with the kernel modules, maybe the vbox networking, stuff like that. EVERY TIME I used apt, I had to –fix-broken install which REMOVED virtualbox. Then I had to reinstall it, telling it to ignore the python situation. The problem looked related to kernel modules \ lack of kernel headers installed so I made sure I had those installed. Anyway, big f’n mess.

I figured I’d share because for someone determined enough, you’ll probably get it working. At this point, VirtualBox does indeed start, you can start to configure a VM, etc. Just when you try to actually launch a VM, it will complain and fail.

Alternate Solution:

But guess what…. There is a major VM solution that supposedly still supports accelerated graphics on XP. VMWare Workstation – which at the time of writing this – is completely free. You just need to sign up with your email, but no credit card or any BS like that.

You’ll need an older version of the VMWare Guest Tools:
https://packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/10.0.12/windows/

Just download the ISO, and after you install XP you can mount it and the installer should start right up. Reboot and you should be good.

IE Downloading

Man… Been a while since I’ve seen THAT dialog box! Mainly because I used XP for years with FireFox.

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Category: debian