As discussed during debcamp in Oslo, all the groups/projects making debian based custom distributions should join together to find common solutions to the common problems. This is a start, with a few of the issues that Skolelinux had and solved.
- Automatic installation Using the new debian-installer and a few hooks to get the partitioning we want and the packages we want installed into the hard drive. I'm fairly satisfied with this solution. - Installing the list of package we want Using meta-packages (ie packages consisting only of dependencies) to install the packages we want. Used hooks in base-config to get them installed during first time installation. Not too happy about the meta-package approach, as it is fragile and break easily if some dependency is unavailable. - Preconfigure the packages we install Using two different approaches: (1) Load answers into the debconf database before the packages are installed using some home-make scripts, and (2) rewrite/replace configuration files using cfengine at the end of the installation if the package is unable to configure what we want using debconf. I'm fairly satisfied with this solution, but am not sure if the method used to feed the debconf database is the best available. I believe the best option would be to extend all the packages we use to make it possible to configure everything we need using debconf answers. - Automatic X configuration Using home-brewed script filling the debconf database, and then call dexconf from the xfree86 package to generate the configuration file. The HW detection info is fetched from various packages (discover, kudzu, detect, etc). - CD building Using a heavily patched version of debian-cd to create the CDs. Most of the patches is to include the d-i boot floppies. This should now be possible with the standard version of debian-cd, but no one in Skolelinux have taken the time to update our copy of the scripts. - Configure default language for all users Using a custom script to rewrite config files to modify the default language/locale. - Making simpler KDE menus Working on a system to make simple menus and change the menu depending on the users group membership. There are probably others, but this should be a good starting point. Are these issues common to other custom distros? How did you solve the problem?