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Re: Fwd: Suggestion on choosing Distro



Hi Venkatesh, and others,

Quoting Venkatesh Thennarasan (2016-05-12 07:38:55)
> *In Tamil Nadu , India FSFTN has taken an initiative to take Free 
> Software to school Students through Education, Initially We have Taken 
> a Rural School in Outskirts of Theni Town. And Several Community 
> Computing Centers.*
>
> *We have planned to fork a Distro for the educational purpose and 
> design it based on the curriculum of Tamil Nadu's Education System. 
> And also Localize it.*
>
> *We like your suggestions on choosing the Distro, Would Your Distro be 
> suitable for the Purpose or do you suggest any Other Alternatives*

I recommend you to stop and think very hard if you really need to fork.

You will possibly reach your defined goal faster (due to less friction 
with others having different priorities than you), but an often missed 
detail is the aftermath of _maintaining the system for years to come.  
Many many Linux distributions have emerged but then withered away after 
the excitement around its launch have passed.

Consider if possible to reach your goal not by forking but instead 
contributing to an existing system: Concretely I recommend that you 
contribute to Debian and help extend it to fit all your needs.  Some of 
your needs are likely already covered thanks to Debian Edu being around 
and in active development for many years, but no doubt some parts are 
missing - help identify and add missing pieces to Debian!


I recommend to collaborate with others in India who have done and/or are 
still doing similar efforts. I have cc'ed Arun, Prema and Kannan from 
project I have become aware of:

  * Arun: icfoss.in in Kerala - strong focus on pedagogics
  * Prema S: BOSS Linux in Chennai - Debian integration and deployments
  * Srikant: IIT Bombay - Vidyut laptop and e-learning

There are no doubt several more.  I dearly recommend you to subscribe to 
the mailinglist debian-dug-in@lists.debian.org and use that to keep in 
touch with peers in the region.

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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