Hi!

Following the instructions at
https://www.devuan.org/os/documentation/install-guides/chimaera/bullseye-to-chimaera

I've tried it on two VirtualBox VMs (one two different Debian host boxes -
a Dell desktop and a Dell laptop). Both VMs were minimal Debian installs.

I commented out all the lines in /etc/apt/sources.list and added the
following as the only lines in the file:

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera main deb
http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-updates main deb
http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-security main #deb
http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-backports main

Then I ran

# apt-get update --allow-insecure-repositories

which generated a dozen or so warnings/errors, which I assume is normal for
the process, so I ignored them.

Then I ran

# apt-get install devuan-keyring --allow-unauthenticated

which generated a warning or two in the process. But the process appeared
to complete properly.

Then I did

# apt-get update

which installed a few things, and appeared to complete properly.

Then I did

# apt-get upgrade

which insisted I type in the phrase, "Yes, do as I say!". This generated
warnings/errors about too many errors processing systemd.

The next step,

# apt-get install eudev

installed "openntpd" and then generated a warning that there is no init
system and policy-rc.d missing.

The next step, the command to "reboot", resulted with "-bash: reboot:
command not found". Furthermore, the "shutdown" command can not be found.
The only way I could find to reboot was to do a VM reset.

On reboot, there were messages about recovering the journal and clearing
orphaned inodes, then:

run-init: can't execute '/sbin/init': No such file or directory
Target filesystem doesn't have requested /sbin/init.
run-init: can't execute (/sbin/init, /etc/init/, /bin/init): No such file
or directory
/bin/sh: 0: can't access tty; job control turned off

The next step

# apt-get dist-upgrade

failed, partly because the file system is mounted read-only. Although I can
remount it as read-write, whatever is broken with the system is broken, and
the rest of these instructions aren't going to work. You just run into the
next problem (non-working network). This, too, can be fixed, but then you
run into another problem. Etc.


TL;DR - The conversion instructions don't work with Debian Bullseye 11.1,
at least not on minimal Debian VMs using VirtualBox on Debian, for me.

I can just wipe these two VMs and start from scratch, no problem. But
thought whoever wrote that conversion page might need to know my experience.

-- 
Kent West                    <")))><
Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com