:B~ About the Debian Live Project

1~about-project About the Debian Live Project

2~ Motivation

3~ What is wrong with current live systems

When Debian Live was initiated, there were already several Debian based live
systems available and they are doing a great job. From the Debian
perspective most of them have one or more of the following disadvantages:

_* They are not Debian projects and therefore lack support from within
Debian.

_* They mix different distributions, e.g. *{testing}* and *{unstable}*.

_* They support i386 only.

_* They modify the behaviour and/or appearance of packages by stripping them
down to save space.

_* They include packages from outside of the Debian archive.

_* They ship custom kernels with additional patches that are not part of
Debian.

_* They are large and slow due to their sheer size and thus not suitable for
rescue issues.

_* They are not available in different flavours, e.g. CDs, DVDs, USB-stick
and netboot images.

3~ Why create our own live system?

Debian is the Universal Operating System: Debian has a live system to show
around and to accurately represent the Debian system with the following main
advantages:

_* It is a subproject of Debian.

_* It reflects the (current) state of one distribution.

_* It runs on as many architectures as possible.

_* It consists of unchanged Debian packages only.

_* It does not contain any packages that are not in the Debian archive.

_* It uses an unaltered Debian kernel with no additional patches.

2~ Philosophy

3~ Only unchanged packages from Debian "main"

We will only use packages from the Debian repository in the "main"
section. The non-free section is not part of Debian and therefore cannot be
used for official live system images.

We will not change any packages. Whenever we need to change something, we
will do that in coordination with its package maintainer in Debian.

As an exception, our own packages such as live-boot, live-build or
live-config may temporarily be used from our own repository for development
reasons (e.g. to create development snapshots). They will be uploaded to
Debian on a regular basis.

3~ No package configuration of the live system

In this phase we will not ship or install sample or alternative
configurations. All packages are used in their default configuration as they
are after a regular installation of Debian.

Whenever we need a different default configuration, we will do that in
coordination with its package maintainer in Debian.

A system for configuring packages is provided using debconf allowing custom
configured packages to be installed in your custom produced Debian Live
images, but for the {prebuilt live images}#downloading-prebuilt-images we
choose to leave packages in their default configuration, unless absolutely
necessary in order to work in the live environment. Wherever possible, we
prefer to adapt packages within the Debian archive to work better in a live
system versus making changes to the live toolchain or {prebuilt image
configurations}#clone-configuration-via-git. For more information, please
see {Customization overview}#customization-overview.

2~contact Contact

_* *{Mailing list}*: The primary contact for the project is the mailing list
at http://lists.debian.org/debian-live/. You can email the list directly by
addressing your mail to debian-live@lists.debian.org. The list archives are
available at http://lists.debian.org/debian-live/.

_* *{IRC}*: A number of users and developers are present in the #debian-live
channel on irc.debian.org (OFTC). When asking a question on IRC, please be
patient for an answer. If no answer is forthcoming, please email the mailing
list.

_* *{BTS}*: The {Debian Bug Tracking System}http://www.debian.org/Bugs/
(BTS) contains details of bugs reported by users and developers. Each bug is
given a number, and is kept on file until it is marked as having been dealt
with. For more information, please see {Reporting bugs}#bugs.
