\end{center}
\vspace{-1em}
-\section*{Debian project}
+\section*{Debian}
was founded by Ian Murdock in August 1993 with the goal
to create an easy to install and maintain non-commercial GNU/Linux
-distribution that would be able to effectively compete in the
+operating system that would be able to compete in the
commercial market. Since then Debian established itself as an
independent and unique project driven by more than 3000
enthusiastic contributors all around the globe.
% Current installer of Debian has been translated more that to 60 languages.
% (12 ??? officially supported architectures).
% Well appreciated
-Widely acknowledged quality and openness of Debian made it the foundation of choice for
+The high quality and openness of Debian made it the foundation of choice for
more than 120 derivative GNU/Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu and
Mint.
%\item[Unstable] \emph{Constantly changing distribution}\\
\item[Development]\hfill\emph{Unstable} (always \emph{sid})\\
Never \emph{released}, constantly evolving platform to integrate new
- versions of software in Debian.\\
+ versions of software into Debian.\\
%entry point for the software to appear in Debian.\\
Despite its name, \emph{Unstable} is a good platform for those
requiring the most recent versions of software
%\item[Testing] \emph{Constantly changing future release candidate}\\
-\item[``Always-ready-to-release'']\hfill\emph{Testing} (now \emph{squeeze})\\
+\item[``Almost-ready-to-release'']\hfill\emph{Testing} (now \emph{squeeze})\\
% What to become a next \emph{Stable} release candidate.\\
Software versions known to be secure and of good quality.
% Software migrated from \emph{Unstable} which is known to be of good
% could be simply 'Debian People' or 'Debian Community'
Debian is the only major operating system developed
-solely by volunteer individuals that collaborate via the Internet.
+solely by volunteer individuals who collaborate via the Internet.
Debian developers, teams or individual contributors improve the operating
system not by writing new applications (in most cases), but by
\begin{itemize}[nolistsep,topsep=0em,leftmargin=1pc]
\item providing user support
\end{itemize}
-Packaged software in Debian have individual maintainers which are
-often also users of a particular software, and are therefore interested in its
-reliable operation. Certain field of applications have dedicated maintainer
+Packaged software in Debian have individual maintainers who are
+often also users of a particular software, and who are therefore interested in its
+reliable operation. Certain fields of applications have dedicated maintainer
teams, such as Debian-Science or Debian-Med.
%\columnbreak
\url{http://neuro.debian.net}
%\section*{NeuroDebian Project:}
-\section*{The Ultimate Research Platform}
+\section*{The Universal Research Platform}
\hrule
\end{center}
-\section*{NeuroDebian}
-
-is a Debian project aiming to provide Neuroscience community with a
-stable and versatile research platform -- the Debian OS. NeuroDebian
-(formerly known as Experimental Psychology, ExpPsy) was initiated in
-2006 to provide packaging of PyEPL and FSL software so they could
-become an integral part of Debian, thus seamlessly available to users
-of Debian or any derived distribution. Since 2006 software coverage
-of NeuroDebian increased more than ten-fold. NeuroDebian repository
-\url{http://neuro.debian.net} makes recent versions of the software
-available not only for the \emph{Development} but also for previous
-releases of Debian and Ubuntu. The tandem of a stable generic
-operating system, Debian, together with new versions of research
-software from NeuroDebian repository compose the ultimate research
-platform -- stable versatile environment with recent neuroscientific
-methodologies just 1-click away. Such stability, ease of software
-installation and system maintenance and constantly growing coverage of
-software solutions made NeuroDebian project popular among
+\section*{NeuroDebian is}
+
+a Debian project aiming to provide the Neuroscience community with a
+stable and versatile research platform -- the Debian OS.
+Since 2005, NeuroDebian integrates neuroscience software into the Debian
+operating system to allow neuroscientists to benefit from the advantages of
+the universal operating system in their day-to-day research activities.
+The NeuroDebian repository
+(\url{http://neuro.debian.net}) offers the latest research software for
+all Debian suites (and various releases of Ubuntu).
+The combination of a stable generic
+operating system, Debian, and a variety of conveniently accessible research
+software creates a versatile research platform for neuroscience that offers the
+latest methodologies of the field for everyone, for free.
+These advantages make NeuroDebian increasingly popular among
neuroscientists and scientific software developers.
\subsection*{NeuroDebian is NOT}
-a yet another Debian GNU/Linux derivative distribution. All work done
-within NeuroDebian project targets software inclusion in the official
-Debian distribution.
+yet another Debian GNU/Linux derivative distribution. All work done
+by the NeuroDebian project targets the official Debian operating system. This
+approach helps to increase the longevity of the project by relying on the
+efforts of thousands of Debian contributors.
\subsection*{Benefits from Debian integration}
\begin{itemize}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
% rephrase to outline the benefit, not burden
-\item Debian standards and policies guaranty quality and robustness
+\item Debian standards and policies guarantee quality and robustness
\item Debian centralized bug tracking system provides a unified
single-point of entry for bug reporting and troubleshooting for any
software in Debian
-\item Debian makes software available within world-wide distribution
+\item Debian makes software available through a world-wide distribution
network, thus offloading bandwidth demands
\item Other Debian enthusiasts take care about large-scale aspects of
\begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
\item[Porting] Software sources get built for 11 hardware
- architectures and 3 kernels (Linux, HURD, kFreeBSD). Ports teams
+ architectures and 3 kernels (Linux, HURD, kFreeBSD). Porter teams
maintain build infrastructure and help making the code
platform-agnostic.
\item[QA] Whole-archive rebuilds assure robustness of packaging and
warn about upcoming problems (core libraries upgrades) beforehand.
-\item[Internationalization (I18n)] I18n teams contribute by localizing
- software for more than 50 languages
+\item[Internationalization (I18n)] Translator teams help localizing
+ software for more than 60 languages
\end{description}
\item Neuroscience software becomes 1st-class citizen within Debian
\end{itemize}
-\subsection*{NeuroDebian coverage}
+\subsection*{NeuroDebian software coverage}
\begin{flushright}
\vspace{-0.5em}
\url{http://neuro.debian.net/pkgs.html}
\vspace{-1em}
\end{flushright}
-\begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc,topsep=0em]
-\item[Electrophysiology] BioSig, Sigviewer, Brian, \ldots
-\item[Machine Learning] PyMVPA, scikits.learn, \ldots
-\item[Medical Imaging] AFNI, Caret, FSL, Mricron, NiPy, Voxbo, \ldots
-\item[Psychophysics] PsychoPy, PyEPL
-\end{description}
+\textit{Electrophysiology:} BioSig, Sigviewer, Brian, \ldots\\
+\textit{Machine Learning:} PyMVPA, scikits.learn, \ldots\\
+\textit{Medical Imaging:} AFNI, FSL, Mricron, NiPy, Voxbo, \ldots\\
+\textit{Psychophysics:} PsychoPy, PyEPL, PyOptical\\
%\columnbreak
-\subsection*{HOWTO get NeuroDebian}
+\subsection*{How to get NeuroDebian}
\begin{description}[nolistsep,leftmargin=1pc]
\item[Debian/Ubuntu]\url{neuro.debian.net} repository
\item[Others] NeuroDebian Virtual Machine
\subsection*{Acknowledgements}
-We are grateful to all Debian developers and contributors for the
+NeuroDebian is grateful to all Debian developers and contributors for the
development of Debian OS, and to Prof. James V. Haxby (PBS Department,
Dartmouth College) for his continued support and endless supply of
Italian espresso (\url{http://neuro.debian.net/coffeeart.html}).