Home

"christian" distros, etc.

Submitted by cofio on Mon, 2007-03-05 14:54
Forgive if I ramble but....... I came upon both Ichthux & Ubunut CE within the same week. Reading about these prompted me to download each one. And, after much reading on as many applicable forums as possible, I really have reservations about these new "christian" flavors of Linux. While not a techie, I'm a little more proficient than the average user. I know my limitations & will easily admit: I am no Unix guru. I work with people who are! ;-) Why should we support a "christian" Linux? Maybe that sounds harsh, but I truly don't understand why this exists other than the reason that "it *can* be done so we did it". Wouldn't something like this be of more benefit to an already stable & well-backed Linux distro like Xandros or Linspire? I know a lot of Linux lovers cringe at that thought, since they would see those distros as "corporate" Linux versions. But with the goal being wide-spread acceptance of Linux, why not go with one that has $$ backing & support as well as real community support? These are where *families* are & it's the average family that is using M$ Window$. It's that family that needs Dansguardian built-in to it's OS. So many distros are based on Ubuntu that it's getting ridiculous. I guess Debian doesn't matter any more?! Ubuntu CE, Ichthux, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, & Xubuntu are just "package-modified" Ubuntu desktops. I really think what's more applicable is a "christian" repository for Debian; a place where users who are christians can get a tweaked desktop for the stable release from which most popular flavors are derived anyway.

Hi, Thank you for your

Submitted by raphink (not verified) on Wed, 2007-03-07 07:39.
Hi, Thank you for your comment. I think your reaction mostly comes from a lack of understanding of what Kubuntu/Edubuntu/Xubuntu/Ichthux are. Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu and Ichthux (and some others) are made by Ubuntu developers. They are not "based on Ubuntu" as forks, but rather embedded in Ubuntu, as different sides of the same OS, with a different look and feel and different defaults. The Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu and Ichthux specific packages belong to the Ubuntu archive and can be installed from within Ubuntu. The work of the Kubuntu team is to take care of the Kubuntu-specific (hence KDE specific) packages within Ubuntu, organize them into a nice KDE desktop, make metapackages to allow people to install them with just a "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" and eventually release an install CD that does it. You could think of the Kubuntu team as the KDE team within Ubuntu. As for Xubuntu, they are the XFCE team within Ubuntu, adding, maintaining, fixing and organizing the XFCE packages to provide a fully working XFCE environment in Ubuntu. Edubuntu specializes in programs for schools in Ubuntu. They eventually also release an install CD. As for Ichthux, we try and take care of the Christian programs in the Ubuntu repository. We try to add them, maintain them, organize them, and eventually provide an install CD. All this work is not fork. It is done within Ubuntu, with packages. Ubuntu Christian Edition works very differently. It is a script that takes an existing Ubuntu installation and tunes it. So eventually, you might say that Ichthux is a sub-distro of Ubuntu (but not yet-another-distro really) that adds packages to Ubuntu, and Ubuntu Christian Edition is a derivative distro, in the sense that it doesn't modify Ubuntu from inside. When it comes to Debian, the Ichthux team includes both Ubuntu and Debian developers, some of them are willing to include the Ichthux packages inside Debian and provide a tweaked environment package. It wouldn't be a "Christian" repository for Debian as you propose, since the programs we care about are open-source ones and can go inside Debian. If you are interested in this part of the work, we'll be happy to have you in the team. As for what is best, most of us spend a huge part of our free time helping with Ubuntu/Debian/Ichthux/(put in other open-source projects, books, conferences, and so on) and it is important to remember that this work is volunteer. If you think things should change, you're more than welcome to help :) God bless Raphaël

User login