Debian for use in Parliaments
DebianParl is a subset of Debian for use by parliamentarians, politicians and their staffers all around the world.
Contents
Install
Ideally you install like this:
Select the system profile you want installed
- e.g. desktop/email
Download and prepare a Debian network installer for your hardware
e.g. AMD64 → netinst → mini.iso
- Install Debian with selected system profile:
- Connect the computer to ethernet
- Boot your computer with the prepared installer
e.g. put in USB stick, turn power on, hold down F12, and select USB HDD
At the Debian installer menu, select Advanced options → Automated install
- When asked for "preseeding", type in your selected system profile like this:
https://parl.debian.net/desktop/email/preseed.cfg
Subscribe to the user mailinglist to get help (and perhaps help out yourself).
- Consider subscribing twice - with both your institutional and some independent address.
You are done! Welcome to Debian and DebianParl
Consider adding yourself at the users page.
See install page for details on current working procedures.
Use
TODO: expand profile topics (e.g. desktop/email) to include helpful documentation...
Engage
Tell others about this project, or simply refer to the Homepage: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianParl.
You can help other users at the user mailinglist.
Get involved in improving DebianParl: Join the development mailinglist.
Project
Goals
- Debian workstations connecting to a locked down and/or not standards-based parliamentary network
- Debian workstations used as main office workstations inside a parliament
- Debian services for parliamentary teamwork
Constraints
General constraints/expectations for tools and services provided, and questions exposed at runtime:
- simple - target users have little time to deal with technical issues, and few have high technical skills
- secure - privacy has high priority for data and communication, both personal and team-shared
- comfortable - target users are likely used to GUI and web-based tools (not ViM nor Emacs)
- compatible - Parliaments are likely (at best) heterogenous environments, not (yet) fully switched to Free software and Open standards
Installation and server hosting is expected done by technicians, so (unlike e.g. FreedomBox and DebianEdu) no special constraints related to that.
Profiles
DebianParl is organized in system profiles:
desktop - tools for using a desktop/laptop for parliamentary work
desktop/email - desktop tools for trusted email correspondence
desktop/office - desktop tools for ordinary parliamentary office tasks
desktop/mobile - desktop tools for linking with personal mobile devices
desktop/legislation - desktop tools for detailed work on legislative documents
- service - network-accesible services for parliamentary-specific teamwork
doc - guides and promotional material for sensible use of DebianParl
System profiles are provided as install recipes for standard Debian install media, and maybe in other forms as well (custom install media, metapackages, recipes for FAI etc.).
Packages
Tools and services especially relevant for paliamentary workers, which should be included in some of above listed metapackages.
- diffmaker - tool to compare revisions of legislative documents
at4am - web-based service for drafting changes to legislation
FreedomBox - compact server offering privacy-respecting and -protecting services
For tools/services not yet in Debian please file an ITP or RFP bugreport, and reference resulting bug number here to ease tracking its progress.
Related but unsuitable tools
Tools and services relevant for parliamentary workers but unsuitable, e.g. due to lock-in by non-free code or proprietary protocols,
- citrix-installer - fetch and install Citrix Receiver
davmail - bridge between IMAP and a certain legacy mail system
ExQuilla for Microsoft Exchange - for getting mails if IMAP is disabled
Ideally that list should be empty, obviously.
Tweaks
System tweaks (adjustments, tunings, corrections...) needed for parliamentary work:
- edge - Debian desktop setup usable within a parliamentary context
- percenthack - adaptations to MTA and mailinglist to support and handle % redirection in email addresses
Ideally these should all be handled automatically by Debian packages.
?CategoryPureBlends