Debian 10 Buster became stable a few months ago, the rest of the systems had to follow but took their time. This is done every two years and creates a wave of confusion, especially those on forked versions of Debian, like antiX, MX, devuan, refracta, etc. Even more dangerous and confusing it is if you are using testing and although testing during debian stretch was buster it now becomes bullseye, while your antiX/MX/Devuan is testing alongside Buster still.
After antiX announced 19 (Marielle Franco) as its current stable branch, MS followed its mothership the week later (a few days ago), while Devuan/Refracta are still chasing Stretch (Debian 9), what they call Devuan 2 or ascii.
So here it is, to take the confusion away from numbers and names:
Debian * Debian * AntiX/MX * Devuan the last good1 * 7 Wheezy * 13 * 0 beta-testing old old stable * 8 Jessie * 15 * 1 jessie (old-stable) old stable * 9 Stretch * 17 * 2 ascii (stable) stable * 10 Buster * 19 * 3 beowulf(testing) testing * 11 Bullseye * 21 * 4 chimaera (next testing) unstable * sid * sid * ceres
As long as you are pulling packages from the same line you should be OK, if you are mixing and matching levels you are on your own, don’t ask for advise, you know better.
The packages for each level that come from debian and create trouble for the others (due to lack of systemd/systemd-libs/ and/or elogind & libs), are rebuilt by antiX and devuan and their numbering system supersedes debian’s, so they replace them as upgrades. In arch where you can have a hierarchy of repositories and a higher repository may have a lower version pkg and not get upgraded, things are much easier, but here we are dealing with the antiquity of apt/apt-get and the huge mess of debian repositories.
This chart is meant to take the confusion away from some, this is a popular source of endless debate on misunderstandings on debian based forums. We are not going to mention mint or ubuntu here, what they do and what their relationship to debian is, because they are simply irrelevant. Without Debian they are NOTHING! At least we give credit to debian and its TWO true forks, antiX and devuan.
** But you hate Devuan, why bother mention it? **
I don’t hate Devuan, I distrust Devuan’s repository system, and the explanations their “authorities” give to justify its mysterious ways. But this is a good opportunity to bring the subject UP again. Devuan -testing or Beowulf is following buster, right? For some time now there are NO UPGRADES, while they claim their repository is “merged” with Debian’s. How can antiX/Debian 19/buster rain updates every day almost, even at a minimal installation (no DM, openbox) but Devuan’s same branch is DRY? So it is not feeding Debian’s repositories, it is lying about it! When Devuan stops its upgrading (freezing) they freeze Debian as well. This is going on for a while now. If it wasn’t out of respect for Refracta and the man that brought (struggled to) OpenRC to Devuan I wouldn’t even bother knowing this is going on. But IT IS, and I WAS RIGHT, but they blocked and banned me out of their list and forum instead of giving a straight answer. Hence the distrust! The JUSTIFIED distrust in what they are mixing, why and how, and just feed as binaries to their users!
So what’s going to happen when they finally announce Devuan 3 Beowulf as Stable? You are going to make an installation and it is then going to rain 2-3 months worth of upgrades all at once, so it would be a waste of an installation bandwidth, really! So go with antiX, it is cleaner and more direct, more open in what it does and has nothing to hide. It is also free of this stack-up corporate/academic attitude “we don’t have to explain everything” I learned to hate about devuan.
My 2c really, what are they going to do, sue me?
systemd-free linux community 
Neutrality is a political position like any other. Taking a neutral stance in certain situations is wilfully allowing the status quo to persist. If you chose to do nothing citing “neutrality”, you are leaving it to charlatans to rule. I think fungalnet has a point there – even though we don’t always agree.
If you look at the last 30 years or so, people have become more apolitical and we read a lot of spin about it all being just about business and the economy – we’re still fed the same repackaged lie which we were fed in the 1980’s re: so called “trickle down economics” – the concept that in order for the person at the bottom to enjoy a marginally better quality of life, those at the top must get exorbitantly rich, to excess. In distracting the general population away from political process, they can be mislead continually by their “betters” who handle all of this on their behalf… Apathy is also the best friend of any political party representing a privileged minority of the population. That is how they can reliably abuse and subvert the “democratic” process, to ensure that a small percentage of population elects a government to serve their interests.
Dictators and tyrants often exist due to military coups and international interventions by 3rd parties, not always because people “mindlessly” elect them. But a subliminal dictatorship of a ruling class can and does perpetuate due to what I have derailed above.
There are perhaps cases for neutrality – i.e. these people are in the pockets of all of the various media channels, who ruthlessly attack, undermine, defame and ridicule any credible opposition. No neutrality to be found there. It’s a complex issue and it really boils down to encouraging people to be political, hold (any) political views without fear of stigma and encouraging them to take place in the democratic process, while looking more deeply at the issue with campaigning, with campaign funding and with a better approach to the lies and slander published in then media without resorting to censorship which would be even worth.
The problem with the current trend of apolitical neutrality, is that is often called up on demand – and when that occurs it becomes tantamount to censorship in itself and the pushing of a particular political position as a result.
(I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to with regards to the Devuan forum, as I have little interest in that, so won’t comment further.)
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Stability on Linux distro’s devoid of systemd usually amounts to packages or repos that don’t rely on systemd. So when Devuan goes on about stability what they really mean to say is that testing and experimental Debian currently lacks systemd free packages. This is why they are stuck on old battle tested ones, though a better argument would be why not setup your own repos if you want to be a true port of any mainstream distro. This is partially why I prefer Arch based distros like Artix, Archlabs and Obarun. Their designed with absolute bare minimum in mind to allow the end user to fetch and install their own stuff. Arch also doesn’t play the silly game of “old pieces of code” as its very nature is being a rolling release. There is also another aspect that makes Arch a political success “NO EFFIN CONTRACTS” you don’t download an Arch distro thinking its tailored support will end in three years. There is no markup on the calendar dates on most Linux distros not based on these companies “Debian/Ubuntu, Red Hat, Oracle, Novell, Google,” and whatever else I missed. Finally Arch has access to AUR think of it like having access to GitHub without breaking your bank on normal repos, you can easily access a database of things that fall outside the jurisdiction of your normally installed packages. This however isn’t a quirk but more like a bonus, in case you want to take it upon yourself to install something not found in the Arch repos. I kind of laugh when I think Debian/Ubuntu bleeding edge, sounds more like a joke considering what you get with Arch which is a peace of mind knowing your system will always be up to date. Some folks like to whine about how hard Arch is, I like to think it could be a lot worse it could in fact be Gentoo. Now there is a politically fine statement if ever there was one!
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Devuan has now released a new major stable version, corresponding to Bullseye. This time around, they have been really fasti &ndsh; faster than Antix; but I fear they are not consequential enough in avoiding horrible dependencies, far from being suited for the medium tier by any scratch.
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