i am not certain about all this, but i will explain as best as i understand things

when h-node started, debian was not recognized - h-node was conceived to support the FSDG distros - some years later, debian had agreed to a collaboration and was added to the whitelist at that time

  https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-debian-join-forces-to-help-free-software-users-find-the-hardware-they-need

however, i found no evidence for that from debian though - it appears that the plan was never fully realized - the h-client was proposed, but never packaged for debian - instead, the debian wiki suggests a different database, which includes all hardware, without specifying if the kernel modules are libre or not

i have argued that debian should be removed - because kernel modules are not whitelisted, the non-free repos make all submissions dubious; and debian is making no attempt to endorse h-node or encourage their users to contribute to it

given that debian has recently decided that the installer will enable non-free repos; the debian developers are now less helpful then ever, toward separating and identifying non-free packages - the devuan installer has always enabled non-free repos - h-node would need significant new code to allow debian or devuan submissions, without false positives

perhaps that could change; and perhaps devuan could also participate - it is worth considering; but i am not so hopeful, without some formal endorsement or cooperation from the distro maintainers

when i load hclient it gives me an error saying to report that my distribution isn't in the supported distribution list

devuan GNU/Linux is just like debian, only without NSA/Microsoft systemd so really should be one of the options