migrating from Debian to Devuan + VLC

Since we are getting into other stuff, I am starting a new thread. Maybe it should be two threads? For the most part my system runs pretty well, except for hanging when I try to reboot (as explained below). What I would really like is to get VLC working right again. It was always the best all-round multimedia player, and now it crashes every time I open it. I searched round for solutions, and all I've found so far are suggestions to go back to the Wheezy repositories for older versions of VLC. Yet another user here in the Trinity group had the same problems with VLC, and he was already using Wheezy. I don't know what the problem is, but there is another great piece of software ruined. I run Debian Jessie, and systemd seems to cause the system to hang in particular when I reboot. I always see that systemd is doing something, and cannot shut down. I created a kind of script to kill running programs, and this has pretty much solved the problem, but I still feel that my current Debian system does not run quite as smoothly as my older systems used to run. All in good time, though. I rarely have incidents any more which cause me to scream, pull out my hair, and call down curses upon the heads of the devs. It's never lonely at the bottom. No problem, it was just a suggestion. If Debian do not complain, then there is no obligation to change it. But since Devuan is a fork of Debian, and thus technically "different" from it, I thought it might be wise to think ahead. One could also say, for example, that TDE *is* really just KDE, but I believe some people out there will object. Likewise, you could say that Icecat *is* really just Iceweasel, which is really just Firefox. You could even say that *rock-n-roll* is really just *the blues* + *country music*. I do recognize that all categories are, to some degree, arbitrary and influenced by personal biases, etc. They can also be useful, however, to indicate that (for example) Devuan has struck out in a slightly different direction, which in my opinion is truer to Debian's mission than Debian itself currently operates. Yes, but the only practical way for me to get Devuan is to install Debian first, then migrate to Devuan. I have tried to install from the Devuan live DVD, and it wants to overwrite my home folder, with no other option. I have a backup, of course, but this does not seem quite right. I have found instructions for migrating from Debian to Devuan, without the necessity of reinstalling my system, so that is my plan. However, I have yet a couple loose ends to tie up, so that I can revert to my working system if necessary, when I will inevitably mess up something due to experimentation. Also, I have other responsibilities, various little jobs, and other things that I must do, as there is a life outside computers, and a whole world waiting to be explored just outside my door; or so I hear. I wish somebody had told me this back when I was in grad school.