14 DAY TRIAL // The final release of the long-anticipated Devuan GNU/Linux 1.0.0 "Jessie" operating system was launched yesterday, ready to conquer your laptop or workstation without including systemd, nor any systemd-related packages.
Started in November 2014, Devuan project's goal was always to develop a fork of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution without the systemd init daemon. Why? Because the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" operating system adopted systemd as default init replacement, a move that upset many users and developers.
It took two and a half years for Devuan GNU/Linux to reach the 1.0 milestone and offer its community a stable, secure and reliable computer operating system that's systemd-free. While based on the latest stable Debian release, Devuan uses its own software repository that appears to mirror the upstream development.
The stable Devuan GNU/Linux 1.0 "Jessie" release is based on the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" repos, and it is distributed as install-only images, minimal live ISOs without a graphical interface, QEMU and Vagrant virtual images, Xfce Live ISOs with and without UEFI support, and several binary images for ARM devices.
As expected, both 64-bit (amd64) and 32-bit (i386) architectures are supported, and the embedded images will allow users to install Devuan on Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3, Acer Chromebook, Veyron/Rockchip Chromebook, Nokia N900, Odroid XU, and a bunch of other devices that use sunxi SoCs.
Desktop Live ISOs ship with Xfce 4.10 and Linux kernel 3.16.43 LTS
We grabbed the desktop-live ISO image, which offers a clean and user-friendly Xfce 4.10 desktop environment by default, with the dock on the bottom and the panel on top. As expected, you'll find all the tools you need to get started with using Devuan GNU/Linux on your personal computer in minutes.
Mirroring Debian Jessie's development, most of the included packages are from older branches, some of which are long-term supported, but others aren't. For example, the distro is powered by the Linux 3.16.43 LTS kernel and uses the Mozilla Firefox 45.9.0 ESR web browser, which is the last in the series.
On the other hand, it ships with a complete LibreOffice 4.3.3 office suite featuring Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Draw and Math components, but the LibreOffice 4.3 series reached end of life on May 27, 2015. In other words, you need to look elsewhere if you want to use the most recent versions of your favorite apps.
Devuan Jessie 1.0.0 is here for those who want to finally upgrade their Debian 7 "Wheezy" installations without using the systemd init system, and it also provides a flawless, stable operating system for those planning on switching away from Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" because of systemd.
