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Debian Pure Blends
Chapter 4 - Existing Debian Pure Blends


4.1 Debian Junior: Debian for children from 1 to 99

Start

beginning of 2000

URL

Debian Jr.

Mailing list

debian-jr@lists.debian.org

Initiator

Ben Armstrong synrg@debian.org

Release

Debian 3.0 (Woody)

Goals

The main target is young children. By the time children are teenaged, they should be comfortable with using Debian without any special modifications.

Debian Jr. was the first Blend. In fact, at the time this project was created, the idea behind of Debian Pure Blends was born, although then, we used the term "Debian Internal Project". Over time, this name was changed to "Custom Debian Distributions" first because it was too broad, as it was equally descriptive of a number of quite different projects, such as IPv6 and QA. The next change of names became necessary when it was realised that the term "Custom Debian Distribution" was considered as "something else than Debian" by any newcomer. This was so misleading that it effectively blocked a wide propagation of the principle.

Debian Jr. not only provides games, but is also concerned about their quality from a child's perspective. Thus, games that are regarded as not well suited to young children are omitted. Moreover, choices are made about which packages are best suited for children to use for various other activities and tasks that interest them. This includes, for example, simple text processing, web browsing and drawing.


4.2 Debian Med: Debian in Health Care

Start

beginning of 2002

URL

Debian Med

Mailing list

debian-med@lists.debian.org

Initiator

Andreas Tille tille@debian.org

Release

Sarge

Goals

4.3 Debian Edu: Debian for Education

Start

Summer of 2002, since 2003 merged with SkoleLinux, which is now synonymous with Debian Edu

URL

Debian Edu Wiki

Mailing list

debian-edu@lists.debian.org

Former Initiator

Raphaël Hertzog hertzog@debian.org

Now responsible

Petter Reinholdtsen pere@hungry.com

Release

Sarge

Goals

This project started with the intention to bring back into Debian a fork from Debian that was started by some people in France. Because they had some time constraints, the people who initially started this effort handed over responsibility to the Norwegian Skolelinux, which is currently more or less identical to Debian Edu.

The Debian Edu project gathered special interest in Spain because there are derived Debian distributions from this country that are intended to be used in schools. For instance there are:

LinEX

A Debian derivative distribution used in all schools in Extremadura.

Currently they are joining Debian Edu and by doing so becoming fully integrated into Debian. This is a really important move because it brings a lot of good software and experience back into Debian.

Guadalinex

This distribution is not only related to education, but might try also to integrate what they have produced back into Debian.


4.4 DeMuDi: Debian Multimedia Distribution

Start

In 2004 there was and effort by DeMuDi to become a Blend but this effort seems to have stalled. DeMuDi was part of the Agnula project (founded by European Community) and the work somehow was taken over by the 64 studio project.

URL

Demudi (now 64 Studio)

Initiator

Marco Trevisani marco@centrotemporeale.it

Goals

The initiator is not yet a Debian developer, but it is possible to work on Debian without being an official developer.


4.5 Debian GIS: Geographical Information Systems

Start

October 2004

URL

DebianGIS Wiki

Mailing list

user and developer list

Initiator

Francesco P. Lovergine frankie@debian.org


4.6 DebiChem: Debian for Chemistry

Start

October 2004

URL

Debichem Alioth page

Mailing list

debichem-users@lists.alioth.debian.org

Initiator

Michael Banck mbanck@debian.org


4.7 Debian Science: Debian for science

Start

July 2005

URL

Debian Science Wiki

Mailing list

debian-science@lists.debian.org

Initiator

Helen Faulkner helen@debian.org

While there are Debian Pure Blends that care for certain sciences (Debian Med deals in a main part with Biology, DebiChem for Chemistry and Debian GIS for geography) not all sciences are covered by a specific Blend. The main reason is that at the moment not enough people support such an effort for every science. The temporary solution was to build a general Debian Science Blend that makes use of the work of other Blends in case it exists.


4.8 Blends that were announced but development is stalled


4.8.1 Debian Desktop: Debian GNU/Linux for everybody

Motto: "Software that Just Works".

Start

October 2002

URL

Debian Desktop

Mailing list

debian-desktop@lists.debian.org

Initiator

Colin Walters walters@debian.org

Goals

This Blend has many common issues with other Blendss. The latest move of Debian Desktop was to care about more up to date software that can be used as common base for all Debian Integrated Solutions. The common interest is described in detail in New way to distribute Debian, Section 9.6. Unfortunately since about 2004 the project is really silent and it might be considered dead now.


4.8.2 Debian Lex: Debian GNU/Linux for Lawyers

Start

April 2003

URL

Debian Lex

Mailing list

debian-lex@lists.debian.org

Initiator

Jeremy Malcolm Jeremy@Malcolm.id.au

Goals

The word lex is the Latin word for law.


4.8.3 Debian Accessibility Project

Debian for blind and visually impaired people

Start

February 2003

Mailing list

debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org

URL

Debian Accessibility

Initiator

Mario Lang mlang@debian.org

Goals

4.8.4 Debian Enterprise

Debian GNU/Linux for Enterprise Computing

Start

End of 2003

URL

Debian Enterprise

Initiator

Zenaan Harkness zen@iptaustralia.net

Goals

4.8.5 Other possible Debian Pure Blends

There are fields that could be served nicely by not yet existing Blends:

Debian eGov

Could address government issues, administration, offices of authorities, accounting.

Office

Could cover all office issues.

Accounting

Could integrate accounting systems into Debian.

Biology

Could perhaps take over some stuff from Debian Med.

Physics

Might look after simulation software.

Mathematics

There is even already a live CD - see Quantian in Building Live CDs of each Debian Pure Blend, Section 9.5

???

There are a lot more potential Blends.


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Debian Pure Blends

14 February 2010

Andreas Tille tille@debian.org