Details for group SkinnyDebbie

General information

• Groupname: skinny
• Users: mithat
• Description:

  Summary: SkinnyDebbie is an installation scheme that makes it easy to set up a light-and-lean Debian-based Linux system. It should be especially useful for computer systems that are not powerful enough to run Gnome, KDE, or Xfce based systems.

  All files are released under the GPL license.

  Detailed description: SkinnyDebbie is a "distribution flavorizer" that sits on top of a minimal Debian Network Install. Its main task is to install and integrate the following windowing and desktop components into an efficient desktop environment:

  * IceWM: a lightweight yet full-featured window manager * ROX-Filer: a fast and light file and desktop manager * Dropline Nuovo!: an icon set that is more inviting than the default Gnome icons * XDM: the classic display manager that is more resource-friendly than GDM or KDM

  SkinnyDebbie also installs a handful of utilities and other applications that you will need to have a reasonably smooth GUI system, and it does as much configuration as it can for you. It installs a few custom scripts that simplify some basic system management stuff, and it configures some theme stuff so the whole experience is almost attractive.

  It doesn't install a boatload of applications the way full-fat distributions do—mostly because if you are interested in running a light-and-lean setup you are probably challenged for storage space. Thus, I figured it was best to leave the decisions regarding what application software you need up to the user.

  However, it does install Debian's branded version of Firefox and Thunderbird (called Iceweasel and Icedove respectively) because not having a Web browser and (arguably) email is almost insane. It also installs some media applications to help you get started with music and video playback in Linux.

  Philosphy: We are calling SkinnyDebbie a "distribution flavorizer". It is not a Linux distribution; rather, it is a set of scripts that when run will configure a standard Linux distribution (a Debian Network Install in this case) to match a given target "flavor", using as much as possible the packages that are already part of and maintained by that distribution.

  Why build SkinnyDebbie as a "flavorizer" instead of making an independent distribution ? Simple. A "flavorizer" approach lets light-and-lean users directly benefit from the security updates and other improvements/upgrades of a major distribution. A SkinnyDebbie user gets a light-and-lean system that is easy to install and 100% (ok ... 98%) pure Debian, which means the user can participate in and benefit from Debian's excellent community support and other resources. (Or, if I were trying to sound ubercool, I would say that it means the user can leverage Debian's excellent community support and other resources.)