A Debian Pure Blend is a project completely inside of

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

targeting a server or a desktop installation in very broad and general terms. A Debian Pure Blend aims to cover interests of specialised users, who might be children, lawyers, medical staff, visually impaired people, certain academic fields, etc. The common goal of those is to make installation and administration of computers for their target users as easy as possible, and to serve in the role as the missing link between software developers and users well.

Idea

The ideas behind Debian Pure Blends are * providing an out-of-the-box working solution (i.e. some useful collection of software from the Debian pool for the designated target group of specialists) for end-users * providing a frame in which specialists can better channelize their efforts of sustaining a software ecosystem for their field The Debian 8 "Jessie" release consists of approximately 43,000 software packages. Therefore, without knowing the specific name of a given application, it can be difficult for a user to find packages matching their needs. This is particularly an issue when the name of the software doesn't make its function clear.

Technical

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

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 Skolelinux/Debian-Edu is a Linux distribution intended for educational use and a Debian Pure Blend. The free and open source software project was founded in Norway in 2001 and is now being internationally developed. Its name is a direct transla ...

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. Most of the distributions based on Debian, like for example

Knoppix KNOPPIX ( ) is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD / DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB), one of the first live operating system distributions (just after Yggdrasil Linux). Knoppix was developed b ...

Sacix Sacix is a Debian Pure Blend originally created to support the educational and free software diffusion goals of the Telecentres project of the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Sacix is now being used in different projects with similar goals, basica ...

, are not Debian Pure Blends, and 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.

Existing Debian Pure Blends

* Debian Junior: Debian for children "from 1 to 99" *

Debian-Med A Debian Pure Blend is a project completely inside of Debian targeting a server or a desktop installation in very broad and general terms. A Debian Pure Blend aims to cover interests of specialised users, who might be children, lawyers, medical st ...

: Debian in Health Care *

: Debian for Education * Debian GIS: Debian with many

geographic information system A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

-Packages, e.g. GRASS GIS, QGIS, GPSPrune, QLandkarteGT, et al. * Debian Astro: Debian for professional and amateur astronomers * DebiChem: Debian for chemists * Hamradio: Debian for radio amateurs * Debian Accessibility * Debian Science * Debian Accessibility Project * FreedomBox

Debian-Med

The Debian Med project is a Debian Pure Blend created to provide a co-ordinated operating system and collection of available free software packages that are well-suited for the requirements for medical practices and

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...

. Debian Med does not create or program software, but integrates software available under a license conforming to the

DFSG The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in De ...

into Debian and also extends Debian to be a better platform for this field of interest. The Debian Software Repositories contain over 51,000 packages. Debian Med serves as a magnifying lens to categorize all those packages, that as suited for the field of medicine.

References

External links

Detailed paper about Debian Pure BlendsDebian Wiki Blends articleBlends mailing listDebian-med
*
Debian Med talks
*
Wiki page
with further information for users and developers. {{Free healthcare software Debian-based distributions Linux distributions