Devuan

Devuan (pronounced "dev-one") is a fork of Debian initiated by the Veteran Unix Admins collective in 2015, in response to Debian 8 Jessie adopting systemd as its default init system. Devuan's core mission is simple: provide a Debian-based distribution that does not depend on systemd, giving users the freedom to choose sysvinit, runit, or OpenRC as their init system.

Basic Information

Attribute	Details
Based on	Debian (systemd dependencies removed/replaced)
Release cycle	Aligns with Debian stable releases
Default desktop	Xfce (default), GNOME, KDE, LXQt available
Target users	Users who prefer traditional init, sysadmins, embedded developers
Website	https://www.devuan.org

Key Features

• Init system freedom: Choose sysvinit (traditional), runit (fast, lightweight), or OpenRC (the init framework used by Gentoo) at installation time — no systemd involvement.
• Near-complete Debian compatibility: Devuan's packages are almost entirely compatible with Debian packages. Only packages with hard systemd dependencies are patched or replaced. Most Debian documentation and commands apply directly.
• Version parity with Debian: Devuan version names and numbers mirror Debian — Devuan 1 Jessie = Debian 8, Devuan 5 Daedalus = Debian 12 Bookworm — making the relationship between the two easy to understand.
• Container and embedded friendly: A systemd-free environment uses fewer resources and starts faster in containers (Docker/LXC) and on embedded hardware where systemd's complexity is unwanted.
• Variety of installation media: Standard installer ISO, Live images, Netinstall, and ARM device images are all provided.

Relationship to Debian

Devuan is a direct fork of Debian rather than a derivative. Its package repository is built on top of Debian's, but packages that introduce hard systemd dependencies are patched. Binary compatibility is maintained through libelogind0, a drop-in replacement that satisfies libsystemd0 at the binary level without running systemd. This means the vast majority of Debian software runs unmodified on Devuan, though deeply systemd-integrated desktops like modern GNOME require additional adaptation.

Getting Started

# Download the ISO from: https://www.devuan.org/get-devuan
# Options: netinstall, desktop-live, minimal-live, and ARM images

# After installation, update the system
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

# Verify which init system is running
cat /proc/1/comm
# Should output: init (sysvinit), runit, or openrc-init

# Service management with sysvinit
sudo service nginx start
sudo service nginx status
sudo update-rc.d nginx enable

# Service management with runit
sudo sv start nginx
sudo sv status nginx

Who Is It For?

• Administrators and power users who philosophically or practically prefer traditional UNIX init systems
• Sysadmins who need a minimal, predictable environment for containers or embedded systems
• Linux learners who want to understand and control the full boot process without systemd's abstraction
• Users with older servers or uncommon hardware that has known compatibility issues with systemd

Related Links

• Website: https://www.devuan.org
• Download: https://www.devuan.org/get-devuan
• Documentation: https://www.devuan.org/os/documentation
• Mailing lists and community: https://www.devuan.org/os/community

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Next Steps

Return to the Debian Derivatives overview to explore other Debian-based distributions.