OS family Unix-like Kernel type Monolithic: Linux | Source model Open source Userland GNU | |
Developer The "Veteran Unix Admins" (VUA) collective; e.g. Franco Lanza, Denis Roio, Roger Leigh License GNU General Public License | ||
Devuan is a fork of the Debian Linux distribution that started in November 2014. Its stated first goal is to provide a distribution without the systemd init daemon installed by default. The Debian 8 Jessie release has caused polarization among Debian developers and users, due to the project's adoption of systemd as the default init replacement.
Devuan has its own package repository which mirrors upstream Debian development, with local modifications made only when needed to remove systemd dependencies or otherwise preserve "init freedom". Modified packages include policykit and udisks. Devuan is supposed to work very similarly to the corresponding Debian release. Devuan does not provide systemd in its repositories but still retains libsystemd0 until it has removed all dependencies on it.
Instead of continuing the Debian practice of using Toy Story character names as release codenames, Devuan aliases its releases using planet names. The upcoming stable release will share the Debian 8 codename Jessie. However, the Devuan release is named for minor planet 10464. The permanent alias for the Devuan unstable branch is Ceres, named for the dwarf planet.
Devuan Alpha 4 builds for i386 and amd64 were released to the public on February 1, 2016.
Devuan Jessie Beta was released to the public on April 29, 2016.
The second Beta version of Devuan was released in November 2016 and should be followed by a production release early 2017.