-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Apr 05, 2008 at 11:23:16AM +0200, Alternativende wrote: >Hello together, >I want to create a CDD and want to know if simple-cdd is the right way >for me to do so. >It should be a distribution for Internet-Cafe's and so on. I wanna give >bookshops the possibility to have an "Internet Station" that's >completely free and easy to install and use. > >However...What ist the best way to build a CD out of it ?
Define "best"...! Use Debian as is - ---------------- This is dead simple to create (you don't) and maintain (burn a CD), but not simplest to install (your admins need to answer questions) and not fanciest to use (GUI and services work as whatever is default in Debian). Throw something together and make a snapshot - -------------------------------------------- You can derive off of Debian. One approach is to install one system, customize to your liking, and make some snapshot of the full system. It is relatively simple to create and (using tools like livebackup) simple to install. How fancy it is to use for end-users depend on your setting up that initial desktop. Main drawback is maintainance of your snapshot. And giving back to the development community! Please do not go down this path for anything larger than small dirty hacks (which it does not sound like your aim). Use an existing CDD - ------------------- The obvious choice would be to pick an existing Custom Debian Distribution which is designed and maintained by people with similar needs and interests as yourself. If you then stumble across some improvements you would like, they are quite likely to understand what you are talking about, and also quite likely interested in adopting and implementing your ideas for that community as a whole. Main drawback is that there is not that many CDDs currently, and specifically none suitable for Internet cafés :-P Create a CDD - ------------ If you want to initiate the development of a new CDD, then WELCOME! This mailinglist is the right place to be. :-D A CDD is our name for ways to make the official Debian behave customized to our different custom needs, rather than always behave in a generic way: You should be able to grab a future official release of Debian and just tell at installation time that you want to install for an Internet café, and it should install sanely for the needs and desires of Internet cafés, only asking questions to _your_ café. We use several different tools to achieve that goal. custom-cdd is one of them. cdd-dev is another. Personally, I see the customisation process as thres stages: 1) slicing: selecting a subset of packages 2) shaping: manipulate the behaviour of the packages 3) serving: pass the result to the user systems Some customized distributions might need only some of the above. When we talk about "Custom Debian Distributions" (CDD), we mean customized distributions where all customizations to any steps applied are 100% Debian. As an example, this means that if your customizations are not yet fully integrated with the Debian release process and thus included in the official Debian DVDs, then you do not (yet) have a CDD. Sorry if all this is tedious to you. It is quite important for us :-) In my understanding, simple-cdd is mainly a tool to do 3) - and as it is not the tool actually used by Debian officially, then by definition the result is not a CDD. But it can still be excellent for testing the development of a true CDD: If you do 1) and/or 2) by hand or by some other tool, you can use simple-cdd to do an unofficial rollout of your work to test the actual result (and to use it for your actual real life needs until your work has been dopted officially by Debian, which can take several years). The other popular tool, cdd-dev, is used for 1) and 2) and results in one or more .deb packages. In my opinion this is a more robust tool if you want to share your work with others. You asked what is "best". In my opinion, the very best is that you do a CDD for Internet cafés, using cdd-dev, and using simple-cdd for unofficial rollouts until finalized and adopted by Debian. Vagrant, the author of simple-cdd, is on this list, and also Andreas, the author of cdd-dev. They probably both have comments on my analysis above. We happen to physically sit together these days at a meeting in Spain. Nice weather here :-D Good luck, whatever approach you choose. :-) - Jonas - -- IT-guide dr. Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://dr.jones.dk/ +45 40843136 Debian GNU/Linux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.debian.org/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH91TEn7DbMsAkQLgRAjmIAJ9WoLr3n6bOP6ea7oyuPRV80Pnj4wCfVMcz Bf9ZbYBEuSPY8/sl5LQPShw= =kCU+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
