[sword-devel] Re: Christian Debian distro talk / Report

[l4c]

Raphaël Pinson wrote:
> Hello guys,
> 
> The talk held today as planned (and even before the time it was
> planned). There were unplanned guests to it too.
> 
> Took part in the chat : 
> - biblix : head of the biblix project
> - daga : bug finder for the sword project (joined later)
> - glasseyes : administrator of the crosswire mailing lists
> - jansorg : head of the BibleTime project
> - pastorEd : head of the iXthus project
> - raphink : head of the ichthux project
> - scribe : head of the sword project
> - tee : head of the GnomeSword project
> - _mg_ : programmer of the BibleTime and Sword projects
> 
> 
> Were here as observers :
> - AnglX
> - n1637
> 
> 
> Presentation of the various linux distribution projects :
> 
> * Biblix :
> Biblix is aimed to be a linux live CD easy to use and running on slow
> computers, so people with few money can run it.
> biblix : "Biblix started with sysresccd so that it was small and could
> be used by people who do not have big pc so poor people could study
> the bible by themselves. Then onto kaella because it saves me time to
> frenchize the distro [raphink : kaella being a french localization of
> knoppix, thus a Debian based distro]".
> 
> 
> * iXthus :
> The goal of the iXthus project is to create a whole Christian
> Debian-based distribution.
> pastorEd : "The iXthus Project is a Linux distribution intended to be
> an OS replacement for MS Windows. It is designed to be immediately
> usable by non-Linux users. Based on Debian, NOT a LiveCD (yet). We are
> working on a Kanotix - LiveCD version, but nothing released so far.
> iXthus Project has Sword Project files (Bibletime, Gnomesword), as
> well as regular Linux tools [...] The iXthus Project iso is really
> just SystemRescue CD with the iXthus system as a .tbz2 file on the
> CD".
> 
> * LateDecember :
> Davy, the head of the LateDecember project, could not be part of the
> talk unfortunately, but he let me know that he was interested in the
> project, and I presented his project myself.
> raphink : "[LateDecember] is a DamnSmallLinux (Debian knoppix again)
> with quite the same goals [as the other projects] running christian
> apps under fluxbox".
> 
> 
> * Ichthux :
> Ichthus is a very recent project I started last week. It is a live CD.
> raphink : "Ichthux (almost as Pastor Ed's iXthus, although I didn't
> know about it at all) [is] based on knoppix 3.8 (CeBit version, as the
> official version is not out yet). It has many goals :
> 1) providing a nice live CD with christian apps for christian geeks
> used to knoppix
> 2) providing a nice way to christians to get to linux
> 3) providing a way of installing a full Debian system on churches' computers 
> 4) hopefully, converting some non christian geeks that would download
> ichthux for a try and discover the Bible at the same time".
> 
> 
> The immediate conclusions are obvious :
> - all these projects are based on Debian
> - all these projects plan to include Christians apps (including
> obviously the sword project and GUI such as BibleTime and/or
> GnomeSword)
> - all these projects have too few developers and lack means of hosting
> their work
> 
> 
> It seems everyone agrees that merging the projects would make it a
> stronger one without modifying the goals of each one.
> 
> The first question that comes is whether this project should be a
> whole independent distribution, or rather a distribution derived from
> an existing one (such as Ubuntu for Debian). Everyone agrees that this
> is not the goal to improve the technical aspects of the distribution,
> that the project should use an existing technical basis to build a
> Christian project with Christian apps. Debian is chosen as the core
> basis.
> 
> Because of the different needs that various end users (young
> believers, old people, ministers, missionaries, etc...) might have of
> such a distribution, there comes the question of the existence of
> various subprojects aimed to different people. There is no answer to
> it yet. [Personal opinion : a live CD should be able to be used by any
> user, and a whole distro should leave the choice to install a system
> for various needs, during installation]. Everyone agrees that the
> distribution should contain also non-Christian apps for a general use
> (although they might be ``christian-tuned'').
> 
> 
> Once this is set, there is a need for :
> 1) a website to manage the project
> 2) a staff with tasks for everyone
> 3) a place to host the products (ISOs and packages)
> 
> 
> Scribe says crosswire is willing to host such a project and provide an
> official webpage, a ftp for the hosting, plus mail, servlist and ssh.
> For the organization of the project, the ichthux wiki
> (http://ichthux.free.fr) can be used as it is already set for this
> use.
> 
> 
> The last point is the name of the project. In the less than 10
> gathered so far, at least two have a named derived from the greek word
> Ichthus. Linc Fessenden from the L4C project seems to have thought
> about Icthux aswell
> (http://www.thelinuxlink.net/pipermail/linux4christians/2002-January/000008.htmlhttp://www.thelinuxlink.net/pipermail/linux4christians/2002-January/000008.htmlhttp://www.thelinuxlink.net/pipermail/linux4christians/2002-January/000008.html).
> IXthus, Icthux or Ichthux are very powerful names [in my opinion and
> agreed with other people]. It is both meaningful for christian users
> (ichthus meaning Jesus Christ Son of God, Savior) and not
> ``agressive'' for non-christian users (as Jesux would be) so it can
> serve a mission goal aswell pretty easily.
> After a quick search on google and dynonames, we find out that iXthus
> domains are already bought (most of them at least) by a company named
> ``Ixthus Instrumentation Ltd''. Since such a project needs at least to
> own the .com and .org DNS of its name, it is safer to not use Ixthus
> as the name of the project. No vote has been held on what name to
> choose yet. Biblix reminds us that prayer is important in taking
> decisions to set such a project aswell :)
> 
> Glasseyes says he will create a servlist for the project, and the
> other tools can be created later.
> 
> Looking forward to your comments, and we'll set a new chat in some
> time to plan things further.
> 
> 
> God Bless
> 
> Raphaël
> 
> 
> Links :
> 
> http://www.crosswire.org : Home of the crosswire project, hosting
> Sword, BibleTime, GnomeSword, etc...
> http://www.latedecember.com : Home of the LateDecember project
> http://ichthux.free.fr : Home of the Ichthux project
> http://daga.dyndns.org/projects/backpack : Home of the Backpack
> Programmer's LiveCD (headed by Daga, although we didn't talk about it
> during the chat)

WOW!  This is some *GREAT* stuff!  Please keep me informed of any 
developments and let me know if there might be any way at all I can help!

-- 
-Linc Fessenden

In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded - Yeah right...