Devuan 6 “Excalibur” has officially arrived, continuing the distro’s mission of offering a Debian-based Linux experience without systemd. Built on Debian 13 “Trixie,” it brings a few key technical and structural changes while keeping user freedom at the forefront.
The biggest change is that merged-/usr is now required. Users upgrading from Daedalus must install usrmerge first to ensure compatibility. Despite following Debian’s filesystem structure, Devuan remains faithful to its purpose by keeping systemd out of the base system and supporting multiple init systems.
Excalibur supports amd64, arm64, armhf, armel, ppc64el, and riscv64 architectures. However, there’s no i386 installer this time, reflecting Debian’s reduced 32-bit support. Installation media and Docker images are available, and updated mirrors use refreshed GPG keys for signing.
PipeWire is now recommended over PulseAudio for improved latency and overall audio performance. Non-free firmware remains available when needed for hardware compatibility but can be avoided through the Expert install option or removed later using an included script.
Devuan 6 Excalibur stays true to its reputation as a practical, stable Linux distribution for users who prefer control, simplicity, and independence from corporate decisions.
