May, 31 2004

12 slides

Enrico Zini (enrico@debian.org)

Custom Debian Distributions

are the last, ultimate step

towards Total World Domination

What I'll be talking about

What are Custom Debian Distributions

How to be local AND global

How to diverge AND cooperate

How not to loose any bit of creativity from any part of the world

Network economy black magic

Definition of CDD

Custom Debian Distributions: distributions derived from Debian which are still 100% Debian

(successful revolutions need simple ideas)

CDD HOWTO

Take Debian

Select Packages

Configure Packages

Rule the world

Aim at being 100% policy compliant

If you need special software, package it in Debian

If you need special configurations, work with maintainers

If you need stable software, fix bugs and submit patches to the BTS

If you need translations, work with Debian translators

If you need security, work with the Debian security team

(when it works like this, the World Takeover is complete)

Why it works

(for the smart people among you who aren't blindly trusting me yet)

You can make your systems...

Progeny

Xandros

Lindows

Warthogs

Debian-Edu

Libertade

LinEx

Morphix

Knoppix

Debian-Med

Debian-NP

AGNULA

Impi

Adamantix

[this place is for you!]

...all together inside Debian!

Progeny

Xandros

Lindows

Warthogs

Debian-Edu

Libertade

LinEx

Debian-Med

Debian-NP

Knoppix

Morphix

AGNULA

Impi

Adamantix

[this place is for you!]

First magic of CDDs

When you just cooperate with Debian

You cooperate with everyone else

(successful revolutions are made by lazy revolutionaries)

Extreme Customization

Debian is a wad of wet clay: CDDs give it a shape!

With CDDs you finally can:

Work with what you like!

Choose your users!

Market to specific groups

Provide (sell?) user support

Foster specific user communities

Create targeted documentation!

Solve specific problems!

(successful revolutions happen when people are happy with it)

Make people (and yourself) satisfied and happy!

Politics

You can work locally!

You can cooperate globally!

That's the best of both worlds!

(as I said, revolutions need to be simple)

Local? Global?

Technical philosophy

If instead you are Mark Shuttleworth, build a Wonderful Arch Distribution Branching And Merging Architecture and then tell us how it works,
because it sounds cool!

Do everything with standard Debian packages, configured with Debconf Preseeding (when possible)

When this fails, tweak config using cfengine, sharing the tweaks with other groups

When this fails, maintain a new package in our apt repository

Custom Debian

Who makes Custom Debians contributes to Debian, and Debian improvements contribute to all Custom Debians.

When you do Free Software, you create externalities. With CDDs they are collected inside Debian, where they "fermentate" using powerfully creative network economy processes.

Everyone drinks the wine!

Debian-Lex

Debian-Edu

Debian-NP

Debian-??

(even suits can understand the power of Custom Debians!)

45 mins including questions: ~35 mins of talk

Goal: show that there are problems we don't usually think about, nor we are

aware of

Introduction: what the talk is about

Showing non-technical problems that can happen inside Debian and we ren't always aware of

2003-07-19T11:28:55