User:Echinacin35/Debian Pure Blend

A Debian Pure Blend is a subset of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution that is configured to support a particular target group out-of-the-box. All changes and improvements are integrated to the official Debian repositories. A Debian Pure Blend can contain multiple flavors (or profiles) (e.g. Debian Edu has flavors for main-server, workstation, and thin-client-server).

Technically a Debian Pure Blend builds a set of metapackages and provides an overview about the packages which are included and which are on the todo list for further inclusion. Both pages are rendered from the information inside the tasks files in an SVN.

The point is to make better use of already existing packages inside of the debian software repository.

Existing Debian Pure Blends


	Tasks	Presentation	Description
Debian Science	tasks	Debian Science	Debian in the sectors of science.
Debian Chemistry	tasks		Chemistry.
Debian Med	tasks		Debian in medical care and medical research (atm a lot of programs suited for microbiology)
Debian GIS	tasks	Debian GIS	Geographic information system-Packages, e.g. GRASS GIS, Quantum GIS, GPSPrune, QLandkarteGT, et al.
Debian Edu	tasks	Main	Debian for Education, i.e. for networked classroom computer use, that includes the maintenance of the entire school educational network; also for the maintenance of the school administration network; Installation profiles include `education-main-server`, `workstation`, `roaming-workstation`, `standalone`, `thin-client-server` and `thin-client`
Debian EzGo	tasks		It is a set of free software collections aims to promote the usage of free software on teaching and self-learning
Debian Junior	tasks	Main	Intended as a Debian installation on stand alone home computers for children. However, Packages are sorted by tasks only and not by age-groups. As children's familiarity and sophistication of use of the computer and it's operating system develops, you can add more complicated/advanced software to the child's system. E.g. Qimo 4 Kids is a Xubuntu-Fork. Since Ubuntu is a Debian Unstable fork, it contains of course exact the same packages as Debian, but it has modifications as well. Whether this modifications justify the effort to maintain an own Linux distribution is an interesting question.
Debian Lex	tasks		In legisprudence
Debian Multimedia	tasks		Usage and production of multimedia
Debian Accessibility	tasks	Main	Improve the accessibility of Debian as an operation system. Braile, etc.

Possible Debian Pure Blends

Debian Administration / Debian Government: see LiMux, Wienux, gnuLinEx, Guadalinex, Nova, GendBuntu, and many many more. The english article Linux adoption does not nearly tacle it. See de:Open-Source-Software in öffentlichen Einrichtungen! All this project incorporate software from the worldwide existing pool of free software. Most if not all of the software used, is already packaged inside of Debian. Also, all projects base themselves on an existing Linux disribution. See what parts of the software packages were changed, e.g. Installer, Kernel, KDE Plasma Desktop, etc.

Advantages

The advantages are

Inclusion into an Operating System

This includes packaging, security audit, configuration, translation and localisation, easy availability and accesibility (ready to use) for the end user, etc. Documentation. Free Help and also Professional (=commercial) Help.

Survival inside Debian

Sometimes the original autor of a software stops developing his/her software. In that case, the software survives inside of debian. Here, it is more likely to find a new maintainer. Examples

bla: ... it is available on its own homepage and packaged and ready to use inside the debian repositories
bla2: it is available on git and packaged and ready to use inside the debian repositories

Disadvantages of Debian derivatives

Most usually the quick-and-dirty approach offers better results in the short run, e.g. Qimo 4 Kids. But in the long run they regularly fail to

offer a stable and secure operating system to the end-user over longer periods of time; this may not be so important to a standalone workstation, but is crucial to a school network
contribute upstream and motivate upstream to become aware of the advantages of integration of a piece of software into a linux distribution
free support by large user group
commercial support

Most of the distributions based on Debian, like for example Knoppix or Sacix, are not Debian Pure Blends; Ubuntu is not even binary compatible with Debian. Linux Mint Debian Edition is binary compatible with Debian, but is also not a Debian Pure Blend.

At the end of the day, many existing Debian derivatives are excelent concepts of proof to show what is possible by implementing only free software. Debian Pure Blens are not. They are an ongoing effort to offer the end user a ready-to-use operating system, better and better suitable for a certain field of interest.

It is fundamentaly true that any Linux distribution can be