Deuan 1.0 is an excellent alternative if you want to stick to the original Unix philosophy, and (like me) have gotten fed up with systemd's sloppiness towards more complex use cases.
But it isn't the easiest to access. Stuck with the Linux 3.16 kernel, it often struggles with new hardware, and you may not want to spend a partition or two to have it as a test/alternative system. Turns out that you don't have to. Using a poor man's install of Knopix, you can easily accomodate Devuan, set up almost exactly like Debian live Jessie/Stretch. And running under kvm, you have the infrastructure necessary to do all the installation and downloading you need using the connection through Knoppix.
I have described the procedure for Debian 8.3/9.1 elsewhere, and basically the same will work for Devuan. You drop the squashfs live system file in an easily accessible place, set up a volume for persistent store where it is convenient, and define the correct boot parameters. Nest, you can turn to Devuan ASCII, their version of Debian stretch, which is under development right now, starting to become useful. And using a much more updated kernel.
SanDisk 32GB Ultra Drive Dual Go USB Type-C Flash Drive, Green - SDDDC3-032G-G46
$8.99
SanDisk 128GB Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C, USB 3.1 Flash Drive - SDDDC2-032G-G46
$10.99
SanDisk 256GB Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive - SDCZ48-256G-U46
$19.99
SanDisk 256GB Ultra Dual Drive Go USB Type-C Flash Drive, Black- SDDDC3-256G-G46
$21.99
64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive USB Memory Stick High Speed Retractable USB Thumb Drive
$5.99
2TB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Memory Photo Stick for iPhone Android iPad Type C 3 IN1
$13.00
Type C USB 3.0 Flash Drive Thumb Drive Memory Stick for PC Laptop 512GB 1TB 2TB
$10.30
Sandisk 16GB 32GB 64GB 128GB Cruzer Blade Flash Drive Memory Stick USB Lot Pack
$4.99
USB 3.0 Flash Drive 32GB 64GB 128GB Memory Stick Thumb Stick Lot Pack
$353.99
LOT 32GB 64GB 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Memory Stick Retractable Thumb Drive
$420.99