Experimental CDE 2.5.3 package for Devuan Ceres amd64

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

(This is a hobby project, so development and support may progress irregularly depending on the time I have available.)

I have built an experimental Debian package of Common Desktop Environment 2.5.3 for Devuan Ceres amd64.

This may be of interest to people running Linux on older Intel Mac Pro systems or other x86-64 hardware, although the package has so far only been tested on my Devuan Ceres workstation/server. It is not a macOS package.

Package​

cde-desktop 2.5.3-1+build10

The package installs CDE under the traditional /usr/dt hierarchy and adds a CDE session entry to the display manager.

Verified so far:

• package installs and configures successfully;
• dpkg --audit reports no problems;
• dtwm, dtsession, dtterm, and the CDE session wrapper are present;
• private CDE libraries use relative $ORIGIN RUNPATH entries;
• a complete runtime audit covered 78 ELF objects with no missing libraries or unresolved symbols;
• the CDE desktop session starts successfully (SDDM - OK);
• Calendar RPC integration works when enabled.

Important compatibility warning​

This binary package was built specifically for:

• Devuan Ceres;
• amd64;
• X11.

It was built against current Ceres libraries, including libc6 >= 2.42 and libraries affected by the t64 transition.

It is not expected to install directly on:

• Debian stable;
• Devuan stable;
• Ubuntu;
• older Debian/Devuan releases;
• non-amd64 systems.

Please do not add unstable/Ceres repositories to a stable installation merely to satisfy the package dependencies. A separate rebuild should be made for stable distributions.

Download​

Google Drive folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Mpic_i-RnTqDdCGPpaK9W8R3E3pmGN5c?usp=drive_link

The main file is:

cde-desktop_2.5.3-1+build10_amd64.deb

SHA-256:

51cfe73eac53076ae91aee65a5ff9f27ff4d319dfe89c73b440be5036449f61a

The folder also contains:

• Russian and English README files;
• Russian and English packaging journals;
• detached debug symbols;
• build metadata;
• upstream source archive;
• a snapshot of the modified packaging source tree.

Installation​

From the directory containing the downloaded package:

su -
apt install ./cde-desktop_2.5.3-1+build10_amd64.deb

Then log out and select CDE from the display manager session menu.

Known limitations​

This is still an experimental package.

Approximately six CDE panel buttons or actions are not yet fully functional. Some of them appear to depend on historical Unix utilities, commands, or services which are no longer present by default on modern distributions.

Modern HiDPI scaling and dynamic multi-monitor handling have also not yet been properly addressed.

Feedback requested​

I would be especially interested in reports about:

• whether the package installs cleanly on another Devuan Ceres amd64 system;
• whether the CDE session starts with a clean user account;
• which Front Panel actions work or fail;
• behaviour on Intel Mac Pro hardware;
• font sizes and display scaling;
• multi-monitor behaviour;
• missing dependencies or file conflicts.

Please include:

dpkg-query -W cde-desktop<br>dpkg --audit<br>
and, for session-start failures, any relevant .xsession-errors or CDE session log output.

This is an unofficial community build and is not affiliated with the CDE, Debian, Devuan, or Apple projects.