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Custom Debian Distributions

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The missing link between

developers and users


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Overview


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&AL What are Custom Debian Distributions?
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&AL Currently existing Custom Debian Distributions
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&AL Debian - adaptable for any purpose?
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&AL Meta packages and user roles
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&AL Live CDs
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&AL Future

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What is Debian?

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&AL Linux is just the kernel of your operating system.
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&AL You need a lot of applications around.
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&AL Those collections of software around the Linux kernel is called operating system or distribution.
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&AL Companies who build such distributions are called distributors.
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&AL They make money by selling their distribution in boxes, doing support and training.
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&AL You might know Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE
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&AL You might know Mandrake, RedHat, Novell etc.
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&AL Debian is just one of them.


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Sorry.

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That was wrong.


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What is Debian? (next try)


The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made \
common cause to create a free operating system. This operating system \
that we have created is called
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Debian GNU/Linux,
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or simply Debian for short.

Moreover, work is in progress to provide Debian for other kernels, \
including in particular the Hurd and NetBSD.  There have even been \
discussions of a possible port to Windows.

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What are Custom Debian Distributions?
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&A Debian contains more than 10000 binary packages
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&A General users interested in a subset of those packages
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&A Care for special groups of target users with different skills and interests
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&A Not only handy collections of specific program packages but care for \
   easy installation and configuration for the intended purpose.
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&A No fork 
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from Debian
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&goal Basic idea: Do not make a separate distribution but make Debian fit for \
      special purpose instead

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Motivation


&A Support of target users with common profile:
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&B   Less technical competence
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&B   Not able to install upstream programs with acceptable effort
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&B   No interest in administration
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&B   Interest in defined subset of available Free Software
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&B   Need for easy usage
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&B   Defined security profile
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&B   Language barrier

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&A Support of administrators with common profile:
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&B   Limited time frame
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&B   Seeking for time saving in often repeated tasks
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&B   Lack of specialist knowledge

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Status of specialised Free Software

&A Hard to install
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&A Hard to maintain
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&A Need for special configuration
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&A Sometimes hard to use because (lack of user interface)
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&A Strange Licenses
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&A Orphaned upstream
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&A Porting issues (architectures, byte order, 32 vis 64 bit)
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&A Parallel development of the same functionality
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&a Used tools or back ends are not intended for those applications

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&goal Lack of an integrated framework


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General problem


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&A Free Software development is kind of evolutionary process
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&A Needs a critical mass of supporters which are
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&B    programmers
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&B   users
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&A Specialised software has a limited set of users (specialists)
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&A Results in a limited set of programmers
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&A We have to attract both groups to get it working ...
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&goal We are the missing link between upstream developers and users

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Existing Custom Debian Distributions


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&AL Debian-Junior - Debian for children from 1 to 99
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&AL Debian-Med - Debian in Health Care
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&AL Debian-Edu - Debian for educational purposes
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&AL DeMuDi - Debian Multimedia Distribution
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&AL Debian-Desktop - Debian for everybody
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&AL Debian-Lex - Debian for Lawyers
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&AL Debian-NP - Debian for Nonprofit Organisations
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&AL Debian-Enterprise - Debian for Enterprise Computing
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&AL Debian-Accessibility - Blind and visually impaired users

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Debian - adaptable for any purpose?

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&A Developed by about 1000 volunteers
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&A Flexible, not bound on commercial interest
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&A Strict rules (policy) glue all things together
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&A Common interest of each individual developer to get the best operating \
   system for himself
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&A Developers have children in real life or work in the field of medicine etc.
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&A In contrast to employees of companies every single Debian developer has the \
   freedom and ability to realize his vision
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&goal 
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 Do
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-O-Cracy = "The doer decides"

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Why not just forking from Debian?

&A Separate distribution would cost extra effort
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&B    Would be hardly better than Debian
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&B    Continuous work to keep base system, installer, etc. up to date
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&B    Nearly impossible to get security fixes as fast as Debian
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&bconc Forking would be a bad idea.

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&A Integration into Debian has advantages
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&B    Huge user base all over the world thus becoming public on the back of Debian
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&B    Secure and stable system without extra effort
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&B    Bug Tracking System for free
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&B    Infra structure (HTTP-, FTP-, Mailserver, PKI, ...) for free

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&A Bringing back something to Debian
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&B    Enhancing quality of packages by making them more user friendly


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Meta Packages - Users point of view


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&A Collection of specific software 
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&bconc No research for available software necessary
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&bconc User is not forced to browse the whole package list of Debian
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&bconc Easy comparison between software covering the same task
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&bconc Safety against accidental removal of dependencies
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&bconc Conflicts to incompatible packages
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&bconc Easy installation
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&bconc Low effort for administration

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&A Documentation packages
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&B    Packaging and creating of relevant documentation
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&B    Translation


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Handling of meta packages


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&A No special help by usual package handling tools
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&A Tricks to obtain informations about meta packages
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&Acont (Mentioned in Custom Debian Distributions paper)
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&A Target of future development
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&B   Searching for existing meta packages
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&B   Overview about dependencies
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&B   Enhancing tools like
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 aptitude
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,
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 synaptic
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, etc.
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&B   Special
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 tasksel 
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section
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&B   Web tools which keep meta package information up to date
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&B   Find a set of keywords for each Custom Distribution and write a tool to search comfortable
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&B   Make use of Debian Package Tags

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User roles



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&AL Role based user menu system
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&AL User with role
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 <cdd> 
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is provided with additional menu
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&AL Do not bother other users with those additional menus
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&AL Implemented in current Debian-Med packages
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&AL Roles system is implemented by flexible plugins

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Developing meta packages


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&A The package
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 cdd-dev 
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provides development tools
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&B   Examples and templates to fill in dependencies
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&B   Verification of dependencies inside distribution
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&B   Simple method to provide user menus
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&B   Verification of dependencies
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&BL   Creates
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 <cdd>
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-common 
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%cont
package
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&AL Package
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%cont
 <cdd>
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%cont
-common
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%cont
: user roles configuration
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&AL Usage of these tools is strongly recommended
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&AL Debian-Med packages provide a working example

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Documentation & Translation


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&A All Custom Distributions care for documentation
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&A Have a close look on 
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<cdd>
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-doc
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 packages!
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&A For quick information about Custom Debian Distributions in general there is a Wiki page
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&A There is a detailed general Custom Debian Distribution documentation at
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http://people.debian.org/~tille/cdd/
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&A It is also available as Debian package
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 cdd-doc

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&A Translation is an important issue for target users
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&A Make use of Debian Description Translation Project

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Communication


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&A Project on Alioth
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http://alioth.debian.org/projects/cdd/
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&A Subversion repository
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http://svn.debian.org/viewcvs/cdd/
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&A Common mailing list (developer related)
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http://lists.debian.org/debian-custom/
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&A Mailing lists for most CDDs (user related)
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http://lists.debian.org/debian-
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<cdd>
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&A Web pages for most CDDs
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http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-
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<cdd>


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What is a (customised) live CD?


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&AL Boot an operating system
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&AL Autodetect hardware
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&AL Copy writable data to RAM disk and mount it writable
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&AL Configure and start services
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&AL Contain all applications for a certain task ready to run
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&A User is able to
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&B     Work with his special applications
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&B     Carry his own environment around
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&BL    Demonstrate (or even show off using) his fine system
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&AL Leave the local harddisk untouched

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Further usage of live CDs


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&AL Frisbee
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&AL Coffee coaster
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&AL Prevent birds to fly into your window
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&AL Stencil for circles with two different radius sizes
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&AL Installer for your system
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&Aconc Ups, sorry this breaks the definition above because we did not want to touch the local hard disk.
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&Acont Well, it works as all the other possibilities but this is not what I want to talk about today.

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Selection of Debian based live CDs

&A Knoppix = "mother" of all Debian based live CDs
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&A Uncertain number of Knoppix derivatives
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&B Morphix
&Bcsmall Modular; consists of free combinable modules
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&B Gnoppix
&Bcsmall Debian GNU/Linux Woody with GNOME 2 desktop
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&B Quantian
&Bcsmall Numerical and statistical analysis
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&B ClusterKnoppix
&Bcsmall Knoppix with OpenMosix kernel
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&B LiveOIO
&Bcsmall Knoppix with PostgreSQL + Zope; OIO-live demo
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&B Knoppix with GnuMed
&Bcsmall Demonstration of GnuMed
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&B Knoppix4Kids
&Bcsmall Knoppix for children
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&Aconc Metadistros + Debian-Knoppix

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Mastering a live CD - the right way (TM)

&A Today Knoppix-Remastering:
&Acont Get Knoppix-ISO and remove files
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&bconc Makes no sense even with 
%cont
%font "prgn"
bittorrent
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&A Tomorrow Knoppix-
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%fore "yellow"
Mastering
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:
&Acont "Basic-Knoppix" in chroot and adding packages
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&Aconc Integrate Knoppix build system into Debian
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&B Might be a Custom Distribution for itself
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&B Creation and customisation of live CDs from native Debian mirror
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&C
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debootstrap
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&C Install Knoppix stuff into chroot environment
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&C Customise chroot environment for intended purpose
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&C Create ISO image from chroot environment (as done before)
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&C Perhaps make use of
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 debix
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&bconc Portable to other architectures (PowerPC)

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To do


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&AL Enhance tools for handling of meta packages
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&AL Fix 
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tasksel
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 to present list of CDDs
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&AL Debian Package Tags
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&AL Integrate live CD build system into Debian

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Future



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&AL More Custom Debian Distributions
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&AL Tools for better support have to be developed
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&AL Spreading the idea to developers and users
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&AL Provide customised live CDs of CDDs
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&AL New way to distribute Debian
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&AL Provide extra Packages file for each CDD


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&end This talk can be found at






&signend http://people.debian.org/~tille/talks/

&signend Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org>