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43 \begin{multicols}{3} % 3 columns
47 %\includegraphics[width=0.5\columnwidth]{openlogo}
48 \includegraphics[width=0.5\columnwidth]{openlogo-vsop}
50 \url{http://www.debian.org}
51 %\section*{Debian GNU/Linux}
53 \section*{The Universal Operating System}
56 Debian project was founded by Ian Murdock in August 1993 with the goal
57 to create an easy to install and maintain non-commercial GNU/Linux
58 distribution that would be able to effectively compete in the
59 commercial market. Since then Debian established itself as an
60 independent and unique project driven by more than 3,000 of
61 enthusiastic Debian developers and contributors all around the globe.
62 Principles of \emph{do-ocracy} and democracy backed up by evolving open
63 standards allowed Debian to deliver the comprehensive operating system largest not
64 only in its coverage of integrated software, but also in the
65 number of the supported hardware architectures.
66 % Current installer of Debian has been translated more that to 60 languages.
67 % (12 ??? officially supported architectures).
69 Acknowledged quality and openness of Debian made it the choice for
70 more than 120 derivative GNU/Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and
73 \subsection*{Debian is}
74 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=0.8em,style=nextline]
75 \item[V\textnormal{ersatile}] Over 15,000 software products maintained to provide
76 a secure and stable system for any field of application
77 (\url{http://packages.debian.org})
80 \item[S\textnormal{imple}] Single command is enough to install or upgrade single
81 software or the entire system at once
82 \item[O\textnormal{pen}] All software is free and open-source (FOSS).\\
83 Debian project decisions are voted for in public
84 \item[P\textnormal{opular}] Used by governments, companies, education
85 institutions (\url{http://www.debian.org/users/})
89 Original: Very Special Old Pale
92 Very (Special|Stable) Operating Platform
95 %\section*{Understand Debian}
97 \subsection*{Debian suites}
99 % Debian distribution comes in 3 major flavors
101 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=1em]
103 %\item[Unstable] \emph{Constantly changing distribution}\\
104 \item[Development]\hfill\emph{Unstable} (always \emph{sid})\\
105 Never \emph{released}, constantly evolving platform to integrate new
106 versions of software in Debian.\\
107 %entry point for the software to appear in Debian.\\
108 Despite its name, \emph{Unstable} is a good platform for those
109 requiring the most recent versions of software
111 %\item[Testing] \emph{Constantly changing future release candidate}\\
112 \item[``Always-ready-to-release''] \emph{Testing} (now \emph{squeeze})\\
113 % What to become a next \emph{Stable} release candidate.\\
114 Software migrated from \emph{Unstable} which is known to be of good
115 quality. Immediate updates are provided only
116 to assure secure and robust performance. \\
117 \emph{Testing} provides a good balance between stability and recency
120 %\item[Stable] \emph{Official release}\\
121 \item[Official release]\hfill\emph{Stable} (now \emph{lenny})\\
122 Software verified to be well tested and secure,
123 % Very stable (hence the name) and secure
124 but might be lacking the most recent versions.\\% of the software.\\
125 % of not the most recent versions. \\
126 \emph{Stable} is released based on \emph{Testing} ``when it is
127 ready'', on average bi-yearly. Complementary updates keep the
128 system secure and robust.\\
129 \emph{Stable} is the choice where robustness and security are of
134 \subsection*{It has names}
136 The code names of Debian releases are names of characters from the Toy
137 Story animation, e.g. sid, squeeze, lenny. \emph{Unstable}
138 flavor always called \emph{sid}, while a new name chosen for every
139 upcoming release and assigned to \emph{Testing} to become a code name
140 of the release when it becomes \emph{Stable}.\\ At the moment
141 \emph{squeeze} is \emph{Testing}, and \emph{lenny} is \emph{Stable}.
142 As soon as \emph{squeeze} gets released, \emph{Testing} will be given
143 a new name -- \emph{wheezy}.
146 \subsection*{Debian components}
148 % Debian distribution comes in 3 major flavors
149 %Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)\\
150 %\url{http://www.debian.org/social_contract}
152 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=1em]
153 \item[Free as in freedom]\hfill\emph{main}\\
154 This is the actual Debian with full support.\\
155 All software in \emph{main} is distributed under FOSS licenses
156 compliant with Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) to assure
157 complete freedom to use, modify, and (re-)distribute
158 \item[Not free \emph{en bloc}]\hfill\emph{contrib}\\
159 Software which, despite being free itself, depends on
160 \emph{non-free} 3rd party software, rendering it useless without
161 \item[Somewhat free]\hfill\emph{non-free}\\
162 Software which is under a restrictive license removing some freedoms
163 (\emph{e.g.} non-commercial use only), but which is allowed to be
164 used for free and re-distributed (\emph{e.g. NVidia drivers})
168 \subsection*{Debian is driven by enthusiastic experts}
169 % could be simply 'Debian People' or 'Debian Community'
171 Debian is the only major Linux distribution that is being developed
172 cooperatively solely by many individuals through the Internet, in the
173 same spirit as Linux and other free software.\\
174 The Debian developers, teams and the community contribute to the
175 project not by writing new applications (in most cases), but by
176 \begin{itemize}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
177 \item packaging existing software into Debian
178 according to the open standards of the project
179 \item assuring quality of the overall Debian distribution
180 \item fixing and communicating bug reports to upstream developers
181 \item improving documentation and internationalization
182 \item providing user support
185 Packaged software in Debian have individual maintainers which are
186 often also the users of that software, so they are interested to have
187 it functioning correctly. Often individual maintainers join
188 the teams, such as Debian-Science or Debian-Med, based on the common
192 \subsection*{HOWTO get Debian}
194 %\subsubsection*{Stable}
195 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,style=nextline]
196 \item[Install on a hard-drive] \url{http://get.debian.net/}
197 \item[Boot from CD/USB] \url{http://get.debian.net/live/}
198 \item[Run in a Virtual Machine] \url{http://neuro.debian.net/vm.html}
199 \item[More options (e.g. buy pre-installed)] \url{http://debian.org/distrib}
200 \item[Testing/Unstable version] \url{http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer}
203 % \subsection*{Get \emph{Testing/Unstable} Debian}
205 % Install on a hard-drive or in a Virtual Machine\\
206 % \url{http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer}
209 \subsection*{HOWTO install software X}
211 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,style=nextline]
213 \item[GUI (Synaptic Package Manager)]
214 % \emph{Synaptic Package Manager}
215 Select X and click ``Apply''\\
216 \includegraphics[width=0.95\columnwidth]{shots/synaptic-fslview}
223 \subsection*{HOWTO upgrade the entire system}
225 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,style=nextline]
226 \item[GUI (Synaptic Package Manager)]
227 Click ``Mark All Upgrades'', ``Apply''
229 apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade
232 \subsection*{HOWTO get support}
234 \url{http://www.debian.org/support}
236 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,style=nextline]
238 % Use \emph{Synaptic Package Manager}
241 \item[Community support]
242 %\begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
243 %\item[Mailing lists]
244 \url{http://www.debian.org/MailingLists}\\
245 \url{http://forums.debian.net}\\
246 \url{http://ask.debian.net}
248 \item[Commercial support]
249 \url{http://www.debian.org/consultants}
253 \section*{Reasons to choose Debian}
254 \paragraph{It is maintained by its users}
256 If something needs to be fixed or improved, we just do it.
258 \paragraph{Unparalleled support}
260 Mail sent to the mailing lists often gets answers within 15 minutes (or less),
261 for free, and by the people who developed it. Compare that to typical phone
262 support: hours spent on the phone, for money, only to get someone who doesn't
263 know the system well enough to even understand your question.
265 \paragraph{You wouldn't be alone in your choice}
267 A wide range of organizations and individuals use Debian. See our Who's Using
268 Debian? page for a description of some high-profile sites which use Debian, and
269 have chosen to submit a short description of how they use Debian and why.
271 \paragraph{The best packaging system in the world.}
273 Tired of old files from software three versions old cluttering your system? Or
274 installing a piece of software only to find it causes your system to crash
275 because of software conflicts? Dpkg, Debian's endured packaging system, takes
276 care of these issues for you.
278 \paragraph{Easy installation}
280 If you have heard that GNU/Linux is difficult to install, then you haven't
281 tried Debian lately. We are constantly improving the installation process. You
282 can do the installation directly from CD, DOS, floppies or even over the
285 \paragraph{Incredible amounts of software}
287 Debian comes with over 25000 different pieces of software. Every bit of it is
288 free. If you have proprietary software that runs under GNU/Linux, you can still
289 use it - in fact, there may even be an installer in Debian that will
290 automatically install and set up everything for you.
292 \paragraph{Packages well integrated}
294 Debian surpasses all other distributions in how well its packages are
295 integrated. Since all software is packaged by a coherent group, not only can
296 all packages be found at a single site, but you can be assured that we have
297 already worked out all issues regarding complicated dependencies. While we feel
298 that the deb format has some advantages over the rpm format, it is the
299 integration between the packages that makes a Debian system more robust.
301 \paragraph{Source code}
303 If you are a software developer, you will appreciate the fact that there are
304 hundreds of development tools and languages, plus millions of lines of source
305 code in the base system. All of the software in the main distribution meets the
306 criteria of the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). This means that you can
307 freely use this code to study from, or to incorporate into new free software
308 projects. There are also plenty of tools and code suitable for use in
309 proprietary projects.
311 \paragraph{Easy upgrades}
313 Due to our packaging system, upgrading to a new version of Debian is a snap.
314 Just run apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade (or aptitude update; aptitude
315 dist-upgrade in newer releases) and you can upgrade from a CD in a matter of
316 minutes or point apt at one of the over 300 Debian mirrors and upgrade over the
319 \rotatebox{90}{\includegraphics[height=.9\columnwidth]{distro-dev}}
320 \rotatebox{90}{Description}
322 \paragraph{Multiple architectures and kernels}
324 Currently Debian supports an impressive number of CPU architectures: alpha,
325 amd64, armel, hppa, i386, ia64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, and sparc. It also
326 runs on GNU Hurd and FreeBSD kernels besides Linux, and with the debootstrap
327 utility you will be hard-pressed to find a device that can't run Debian.
329 \paragraph{Bug tracking system}
331 Debian's bug tracking system is publicly available. We don't try to hide the
332 fact that software doesn't always work the way users want. Users are encouraged
333 to submit bug reports and are notified when and why the bug was closed. This
334 system allows Debian to respond to problems quickly and honestly.
337 \section*{Acknowledgements}
347 \begin{multicols}{3} % 3 columns
352 \includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{logo_tuned/label}
354 \url{http://neuro.debian.net}
355 %\section*{NeuroDebian Project:}
356 \section*{The Ultimate Research Platform}
360 \section*{NeuroDebian is}
362 a Debian project aiming to provide Neuroscience community with a
363 stable and versatile research platform -- the Debian OS. NeuroDebian
364 (formerly known as Experimental Psychology, ExpPsy) was initiated in
365 2006 to provide packaging of PyEPL and FSL software so they could
366 become an integral part of Debian, thus seamlessly available to users
367 of Debian or any derived distribution. Since 2006 software coverage
368 of NeuroDebian increased more than ten-fold. NeuroDebian repository
369 \url{http://neuro.debian.net} makes recent versions of the software
370 available not only for the \emph{Development} but also for previous
371 releases of Debian and Ubuntu. The tandem of a stable generic
372 operating system, Debian, together with new versions of research
373 software from NeuroDebian repository compose the ultimate research
374 platform -- stable versatile environment with recent neuroscientific
375 methodologies just 1-click away. Such stability, ease of software
376 installation and system maintenance and constantly growing coverage of
377 software solutions made NeuroDebian project popular among
378 neuroscientists and scientific software developers.
381 \section*{NeuroDebian is NOT}
383 a yet another Debian GNU/Linux derivative distribution. All work done
384 within NeuroDebian project targets software inclusion in the official
388 \section*{Advantages from integration into Debian}
390 \begin{itemize}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
392 % rephrase to outline the benefit, not burden
393 \item Debian standards and policies guaranty quality and robustness
395 \item Debian centralized bug tracking system provides a unified
396 single-point of entry for bug reporting and troubleshooting for any
399 \item Debian makes software available within world-wide distribution
400 network, thus offloading bandwidth demands
402 \item Other Debian enthusiasts take care about large-scale aspects of
403 deployment, quality assurance, porting and integration at the level
404 of the entire distribution:
406 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
407 \item[Porting] Software sources get built for 11 hardware
408 architectures and 3 kernels (Linux, HURD, kFreeBSD). Ports teams
409 maintain build infrastructure and help making the code
411 \item[QA] Whole-archive rebuilds assure robustness of packaging and
412 warn about upcoming problems (core libraries upgrades) beforehand.
413 \item[Internationalization (I18n)] I18n teams contribute by localizing
414 software for more than 50 languages
417 \item Neuroscience software becomes 1st-class citizen within Debian
418 project, which guarantees its availability, longevity, smooth
419 installation and upgrades
421 \item Participation in the Debian community helps to assure Debian's
422 aptness for the neuroscientific software demands
427 \section*{NeuroDebian coverage}
430 \url{http://neuro.debian.net/pkgs.html}
433 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=0em]
434 \item[Electrophysiology] BioSig, Sigviewer, Brian, \ldots
435 \item[Machine Learning] PyMVPA, scikits.learn, \ldots
436 \item[Medical Imaging] AFNI, Caret, FSL, Mricron, NiPy, Voxbo, \ldots
437 \item[Psychophysics] PsychoPy, PyEPL
444 \section*{HOWTO get NeuroDebian}
445 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
446 \item[Debian/Ubuntu]\url{neuro.debian.net} repository
447 \item[Others] NeuroDebian Virtual Machine
448 % Here place a left-top corner of OSX with seamless mode
451 \section*{Developers oriented information}
455 \section*{Who is using NeuroDebian}
458 %\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{usage_worldmap}
460 buga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga dugabuga duga
463 \def\blank{\hspace{0em}\vspace{-1em}}
465 \section*{Work-in-progress}
467 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=1em,style=nextline]
469 \item[Expanded coverage]\blank
470 \begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=0em,style=nextline]
471 \item[Electrophysiology] BioSig, Brian, NEURON, \ldots
472 \item[Matlab/Octave toolboxes] SPM, EEGLAB, \ldots
475 \epigraph{Having FreeSurfer integrated into the Debian operating system by the NeuroDebian team would have enormous benefits for us, and for the thousands of users of FreeSurfer across the world.}{Prof. Bruce Fischl}{Director, Computational Core at Martinos Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA}
476 \item[Improved quality assurance]
477 Extended integration and regression testing
478 \item[Available snapshotting service]
479 % Entire NeuroDebian repository for any given past moment
480 All versions of packages readily available
481 \item[Data as the 1st class citizen]
482 \url{http://neuro.debian.net/datasets.html}
483 \item[Universal availability]\blank
484 % \begin{itemize}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=0em]
485 % \item Virtual Appliance enhancements
493 \section*{Testimonials}
496 \url{http://neuro.debian.net/testimonials.html}
501 \epigraph{The approach taken with NeuroDebian is plainly the most appropriate
502 approach to software distribution for the dominant platform in brain
503 image analysis, and I have great confidence that this project will be
504 a major asset to the neuroscience community in facilitating the
505 distribution of stable software, improving the reliability and
506 replicability of analyses, and in helping to improve software
507 development practices.}{Prof. Daniel Y. Kimberg}{Director, Data
508 Processing Facility, Center for Functional Neuroimaging, University of
509 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA}
511 \section*{Acknowledgements}
513 We are grateful to all Debian developers and contributors for the
514 development of Debian OS, and to Prof. James V. Haxby (PBS Department,
515 Dartmouth College) for his continued support and endless supply of
516 Italian espresso (\url{http://neuro.debian.net/coffeeart.html}).
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