Toward a GNU/Linux Distribution for Corporate Environments

Abstract

The introduction of a GNU/Linux-based desktop system in a large company is often problematic. In literature, several crucial issues represent such a burden, which is often cost effective for SMEs and public administrations. Some of these are technical issues; the others are related to the training costs for the employees. Mainly, the technical obstacles are represented by different hardware configurations that might require several adhoc activities to adapt a standard GNU/Linux distribution to the specific environment, including the applications profile of the company. On the other hand, to lower the learning curve of employers, we decided to work toward adopting some GNU/Linux live distributions features. In this way, we added to our project specific functionalities, which provide new and interesting capabilities to our community of users, such as self-configuration and better usability, without losing compatibility with original distributions, which is too costly in a professional scenario for its greater maintenance cost. DSS1 (debased scripts set) tries to address the issues we mentioned above. It is a next-generation hybrid (both live and regular) distribution that includes an unmodified Debian-based GNU/Linux release and a modular-designed file system with some extended features, which we will describe in this chapter. We will also discuss the interactions with other open source communities and the positive mutual influence on DSS development process.