DevuanWSL

Devuan Linux on WSL2 based on VPraharsha03/DevuanWSL, powered by wsldl.

This fork is based on Excalibur released on 2025-11-02, whose Debian cousin is Trixie aka. Debian 13.

Disclaimer

THIS REPO IS NOT AFFILIATE TO THE OFFICIAL "DEVUAN LINUX" DISTRIBUTION IN ANY WAY!

Install

Traditional .zip with rootfs+wsldl and the new .wsl format are both provided.

.zip is recommended and #Usage/#Backup only applies to this.

You can use .wsl if:

• you don't mind installing WSL to system drive
• just want one-off shot on DevuanWSL

.zip

1. Download Devuan.zip and Devuan.zip.sha512 from releases
2. Verify hash to avoid file corruption
3. Extract all files in zip file to same directory (e.g. D:\WSL\Devuan)
4. Run Devuan.exe to extract rootfs and register to WSL

Devuan in Devuan.exe is used as WSL distro label. It's possible to have multiple installs by renaming it to something like Dedede.exe.

To uninstall:

# path to DevuanWSL directory
# cd D:\WSL\Devuan
.\Devuan.exe clean

.wsl

1. Download Devuan.wsl and Devuan.wsl.sha512 from releases
2. Verify hash to avoid file corruption
3. Click Devuan.wsl to install
4. Finish the prompted oobe and create a new user

To uninstall:

wsl --unregister Devuan

Usage

Click to expand

Usage:
  <no args>
    - Open a new shell with your default settings.

  run <command line>
    - Run the given command line in that distro. Inherit current directory.

  runp <command line (includes windows path)>
    - Run the path translated command line in that distro.

  config [setting [value]]
    - `--default-user <user>`: Set the default user for this distro to <user>
    - `--default-uid <uid>`: Set the default user uid for this distro to <uid>
    - `--append-path <on|off>`: Switch of Append Windows PATH to $PATH
    - `--mount-drive <on|off>`: Switch of Mount drives
    - `--default-term <default|wt|flute>`: Set default terminal window

  get [setting]
    - `--default-uid`: Get the default user uid in this distro
    - `--append-path`: Get on/off status of Append Windows PATH to $PATH
    - `--mount-drive`: Get on/off status of Mount drives
    - `--wsl-version`: Get WSL Version 1/2 for this distro
    - `--default-term`: Get Default Terminal for this distro launcher
    - `--lxguid`: Get WSL GUID key for this distro

  backup [contents]
    - `--tgz`: Output backup.tar.gz to the current directory using tar command
    - `--reg`: Output settings registry file to the current directory

  clean
    - Uninstall the distro.

  help
    - Print this usage message.

Build

DevuanWSL can be built on GNU/Linux or WSL.

curl, unzip and zip is required for build. pigz is recommended over gzip and used by default.

# Install build tools
sudo apt install -y curl pigz tar unzip zip
# Make release
# use `sudo` here as partitions mounted via WSL are owned by current user
# (e.g. UID 1000) but rootfs requires root aka. UID 0
sudo ./build.sh

Backup

It's suggested to compact the volume first as WSL does not free the space automatically:

wsl --shutdown
cd "path\to\WSL\Devuan"
# requires Hyper-V feature
Optimize-VHD -Path .\ext4.vhdx -Mode Retrim -Confirm -Whatif # dry run
Optimize-VHD -Path .\ext4.vhdx -Mode Retrim -Confirm

wsldl backup mentioned in #Usage is recommended as it does not require extra tools, but you can use whatever method you like.

You can use native wsl --export + zstd to compress much faster:

wsl --shutdown
# you need to install ZSTD on Windows (NOT inside WSL!)
cmd /c "wsl --export Devuan - | zstd -T0 -o Devuan-$(Get-Date -UFormat "%Y%m%d").tar.zst"

It's even possible to use bash+zstd via cosmoscc to avoid ZSTD on Windows or PowerlessShell:

bash-5.2$ wsl.exe --export Devuan - | zstd -T0 -o ./Devuan-$(date +'%Y%m%d').tar.zst