A simple, but complete guide for installing Devuan GNU/Linux on a desktop computer

Requirements:

• A computer with an OS on it
• A flash drive with atleast 4GB (it will be completely erased)
• The computer you want to install it onto (x86)
• An internet connection

First of all, make sure your computer is going to support the operating system: is it x86? If yes, navigate to the Devuan website and download the newest "netinstall" .iso file. If you are running Linux, write this into the terminal: "dd if=[path to iso] of=[drive] status=progress && sync". If you are on Windows, install Rufus and flash the .iso onto the flash drive with it.

After that is done, make sure you backed everything up. Well, not everything, but all the files you need and can't lose. Reboot the computer and press the key used to enter the BIOS setup. Turn secure boot off, because the installer may not boot with it on. Change the boot order here or press F10 and then change the temporary boot order afterwards. Select USB HDD.

If you completed these steps successfully, you are going to see a blue screen with the Devuan logo and a few options to choose from. Choose the first one. After that, you are going to see a list of languages. English is the best option, but you can choose whichever you want. After this you can just follow the instructions of the installer.

For partitioning, you have 4 options:

• Guided, entire disk: this will use the entire disk and set the parition sizes up automatically, based on your disk size.
• Guided LVM: this will do the same thing but with an LVM.
• Guided encrypted LVM: this will set up an encrypted LVM.
• Manual: you can make partitions, the way you want them to be.

For now, I will choose the encrypted LVM option. Make sure you choose the correct drive. It's going to ask you if you want to have a separate /home partition, this is good if you are planning on distrohopping in the future, but otherwise it's not convenient. Just choose the first option. Follow instructions of the installer. Make sure you read everything, because this part is very important.

It's gonna ask you for extra media, but if you have internet, you are probably not going to need it, so just continue with "No". Choose the mirror that works for you.

Choosing a desktop environment is very subjective, so I can't really help here. Look up how they look, and choose one. Web server utilities, you will most likely not need them. You might need console productivity stuff, but you can install them after you are done. SSH server is also only if you need it.

When asked to choose an init system, just choose runit.

After you have finished the installation and rebooted, you should see a login screen or a prompt to enter the encryption password and then a login screen. Log in, and you will see the desktop environment you chose. The package manager you have is 'apt'. You can install most packages made for Ubuntu, some might not work.

That's it! You have successfully installed Devuan.