Wednesday, April 18, 2012

siduction 11.1 - what will it seduce?

siduction is a fork from the derivatives of Debian Sid.  Originally starting with the Kanotix project, the sidux project forked in 2006, but within three years, there was dissension, and the aptosid project was formed.  The software was good; the community was not, and that was the reason for forking yet again, creating siduction.

The aim of siduction is to build and regain a distribution that has the "feel" and similar software to what the sidux project once had, but with much more community involvement and guidance in what is produced.

It's not really a beginner-oriented system.  For those types, something like Ubuntu, or one of its derivatives, such as Linux Mint, may be more appropriate.

What siduction provides is an easy way to install and maintain software that comes from the Debian Sid repositories.  The siduction distribution, however, includes more rapidly changing Linux kernels, highly compressed ISO distribution images (that's what you can "burn" onto a CD, DVD, or other media), and packaging conveniences that many community members appreciate.

For someone who may already be using Debian Sid, I can't see that it offers much, other than the custom kernels, that provide much incremental value to existing Sid users, but for those who want to install a new system, it is a little more convenient than installing Sid, but otherwise is more similar to Sid in the software you actually use than something completely unique and different.

If you do like to try out a lot of Linux distributions, though, this is one of the more interesting ones to try out, if you already have a fair amount of experience, especially if a lot of it is Debian-based experience.

Don't expect anything earth shattering, but do expect a system that is easy to install and configure, a development and user community that is more helpful than its ancestors, and an overall experience that is likely to work well.

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