Dear Devuaners,

a new version of the Unofficial Devuan Minimal Live Images can be
downloaded at:

http://devuan.kalos.mine.nu

The images are available for amd64 and i386 (more architectures might
come out soon) and, despite including much more stuff, still fit into
256MB of space, and can boot in as little as 58MB (i386) or 74MB
(amd64). Instructions to test them on qemu with framebuffer and sound
support are available on the webpage.

I have codenamed these minimal live images "otello", after Otello
Urso, a blind friend of Freaknet who left us several years ago. Hence
the current version has codename "otello_devel3". Unfortunately, there
is no minor planet named "otello", even if there is a minor planet
called "Botello", but I am not too much convinced about it :)

Here is the list of major changes:

  - initrd is much thinner, trimmed from most fat, xz-ed, and fits in
    about 6.5MB (it was 29MB in the previous version).

  - the squashfs is xz-ed by default, but there are options to use
    gzip/bzip2 as well (e.g. for slow machines)

  - boot options have been reorganised. Now the default is an
    accessible boot with no framebuffer. The second option is
    fb-enabled, but asks the user to choose among available
    modes (vga=auto). Seems like a fair deal to me. 

  - many packages added, from standard admin utilities to personal
    production software, from games to stuff for multimedia (image,
    sound, video playback/record/manipulation).

The full list of packages is available on the webpage.

I have incorporated most of the comments I have received here and
off-list. I am still working on a few points, which should be fixed by
the next release, including:

  - full support for an accessible boot, by including appropriate
    beeps during the boot process, and at login. There are some at the
    moment, but for some reason I can't make my qemu installation
    produce any sound before linux starts...

- full support for installation on disk.

  - full support for data persistence (i.e., mount /home from
    somewhere).

You will also find the scripts I have used to produce the images in
the devel branch of the gitlab page of the project:

https://git.devuan.org/KatolaZ/devuan-live-minimal/tree/devel

BE CAREFUL: THE README IS NOT UPDATED, AND DOES NOT REFLECT EXACTLY
THE CURRENT STATE OF THE DEVEL BRANCH. IN PARTICULAR, STAGES 3-5 ARE
NOW FULLY AUTOMATIC. I WILL UPDATE IT ASAP AND LET YOU KNOW.

As usual, comments, suggestions, and criticism are very welcome.

HH

KatolaZ

--
[ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ]
[ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ]
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