On 2016-05-18 18:24, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
> DNG, I'm still left with runlevel 1, the damned thin will only
> accept root's passwd on the console, I can start and run ssh and X
> etc all day, and it works all nice except I have my password
> rejected once I try a login.

Sounds to me like an issue with 'pam', and that you're fix will be in
/etc/pam.d.

> ..exactly how is a Devuan boot supposed to work these days?
> And what systemd crud could could my logins?

systemd-logind

> And what logs do I check these days?

/var/log/auth.log

As a helpful hint, if you know a general time for which a logging
event might have occurred, use gre to help you find logs with entries
for that general time. For example:

grep -rl "^May 16 06:5" /var/log

For the most recently modified log, sorted by time:

ls -Rlt /var/log | less

> ..last time I had this laptop this bogged down, I simply wiped
> /etc/rc2.d/ clean and made it lean, does anyone have a lean
> Devuan machine so I can see /etc/rcS.d/ and /etc/rc2.d/ listings?

The list has been recently discussing a minimal livecd build of devuan that
might be useful for you for this. It's a ~250Mb dowloaded from

http://devuan.kalos.mine.nu/

Read the web page for how to use it, and for how to run it in qemu.

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