Re: The term "Custom Debian Distribution" (Was Re: [custom] The term "flavor" and encouraging work on Debian)

[cobaco <cobaco@linux.be>]

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On 2003-12-03 21:58, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, cobaco wrote:
> > hm, I've added a definition to the wiki:
> >
> >   A Custom Debian Distribution (CDD) is a version of Debian that is
> > tailored
>
> I do not like the term "version".  I'd prefer a "subset of Debian".  You
> get a CDD together with main but you get a helping hand to cope with the
> sheer mass.


> >   for a particular situation/target group out-of-the-box.
> >
> >   Any changes necessary to Debian to support this particular
> > situation/target group arge merged back into Debian whenever possible,
> > improving Debian as a whole.
>
> There are no changes to Debian, because CDDs reside completely in
> main / testing /unstable as any other package.

_ideally_ there are no changes. In practice there will be. For instance:
In skolelinux there's currently a package called locale-config-skolelinux
which sets up de default locale for all users. This package is not part of
Debian. Instead there's some discussion with the relevant maintainer about
merging locale-config-skolelinux, language-env,  and the different
user-language packages, with the hope of eventually creating one package to
set the default locale for both single users and the system as a whole.

- -> while being a subset is the goal we have in mind, it's not always the
actual situation. This is a consequence of
1. inertia in Debian, because of which getting things changed takes a while
2. the fact that some experimentation is often necessary to find the right
solution, leading to non-optimal solutions that "get the job done" being
used by the CDD in the meanwhile.
- --
Cheers, cobaco

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