openSUSE:Derivate Ideas

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SUSE Studio offers great functionality to build specialised distributions on base of openSUSE. Here are listed a few ideas which derivates would be cool.

Ideas for more openSUSE based Custom Distro's

Here you find a list of ideas for custom distros which would be great, but nobody so far picked them up. This list originates from brainstorming about the Google Summer of Code 2011 but it was concluded that the GSOC is more about coding than integration. As a result it was concluded to move these aside for the moment.

But still it's a nice list of ideas. Feel free to contact the person mentioned under Mentor if you're interested to get started :-)


A openSUSE Computer Forensic Distro

Computer Forensics has a large number of opensource tools available, but there is not a centralized repository such as OBS can provide. The best computer forensic linux install ISO I am aware of it from SANS. Google SANS / SIFT (SANS Investigative Forensic Toolkit). SIFT is helpful, but it does not have a mechanism to get package updates etc. By packaging the large number of forensic tools on SIFT for OBS use and building OSIFT (openSUSE Investigative Forensic Toolkit) it would be a benefit to the community forensic examiners across the world. (A universe of 10s of thousands of people.) I am in the process of packaging just one of tools (log2timeline), but it would be great to get a full suite.

In OBS see home:gregfreemyer:Tools-for-forensic-boot-cd

Required knowledge: A understanding of Computer Forensic tools and techniques would be ideal - Will develop basic packaging knowledge, including perl and python packaging during the project. As distro builder, a understanding of sysadm would be appropriate. ie. Setting paths, run icons, menus, etc. in KDE / Gnome / etc.

Skill level: basic

Mentor: Greg Freemyer

openSUSE "Internet-Save-Surf" CD for Children and Teens

Nowadays, the internet means chances and threat for kids and teens. It offers a great source of information, learning, communication and collaboration and helps to overcome borders easily. On the other hand there is exposure of violence and other stuff which is not good for non adults.

openSUSE provides a perfect base for a customized kids distro that is making the internet as secure as possible and helps teachers and parents to teach their kids how to make good use of the technology. It sould be a Live CD or image on a USB stick to be booted for use.

It should contain the following functionality additionally to the basic stuff:

  • time monitoring of the (inter-) net usage
  • a white- and black list based proxy to filter websites to secure the users web access
  • the possibility to monitor which pages were visited
  • maybe interesting link collections for kids and teens of different ages
  • maybe information or documentation of for example common problems with social networks or internet mobbing suitable for children
  • maybe a little test which kids have to pass first.

It might be that there are already good ideas around that existing, so a good recherche will be the first step, as well as coordination with the relevant teams such as the openSUSE Education Team.

Required knowledge: A good portion of creativity and knowledge in the education science space would be helpful, additionally the will to think like a kid :-) So somebody active in the openSUSE Education project would be a perfect candidate here.

From a technical POV some packaging and system configuration skills are needed, as well as working with openSUSE Studio and the openSUSE Buildservice.

Skill Level: Advanced.

Mentor: Klaas Freitag or the openSUSE Edu List

openSUSE "Paranoid CD"

The openSUSE Paranoid CD is a derivate which comes as a live CD. The user can boot it and has an internet environment which is as secure as possible and leaves as little tracks in the web as possible. It can be used for example as a secure environment for online banking.

For that,

  • the firewall settings are very strict
  • Use TOR
  • anonymous web surfing is enabled by default
  • (Firefox?) web browser installed with security specific addons
  • restricted user settings, ie. saving something to home dir is not possible.
  • make sure build is automated and kept up to date including all released security fixes
  • other things to be investigated

Required knowledge: Good knowledge in the security area

Skill Level: Advanced.

Mentor: Marcus Meissner

openSUSE "Multimedia Studio"

A multimedia creation flavor of openSUSE. TO provide the best infrastructure and documentation for applications available for multimedia creation.

Required knowledge: I don't know, maybe some Kernel tuning for low latency audio and video application, pretty much like realtime kernel + some knowledge with artwork, audio and video professional needs.

Skill Level: Advanced.

openSUSE LTS

A long term support release. It might be the same as 11.1 remastered developed by myself, but I deliver an 11.1 centric solution.

So, an 11.1 based LTS release, as DVD-version would be nice. We could use Evergreen for that.

Skill Level: medium

Required knowledge: adding software, repositories, setting up wiki-pages for documentation, spread the word out about it.

Mentor: Kim Leyendecker

openSUSE OEM edition

Creating a preload-iso image based on the current openSUSE release for OEM-partners to easy configurate openSUSE for their computers. We already have an 0.0.1 release and a draft announcement on news.o.o, but it´s all bit unofficial though, and we, or better, I need a bit help from our lovely community ;-)

Skill level medium - advanced

Required knowledge creating distros using SUSE Studio, doing a bit marketing and promote openSUSE to the OEMs

Mentor Kim Leyendecker