similar goals and interests?

[McLogic]

I view the creation of a separate Ubuntu ME and CE as a tragedy. You have similar goals and interests, and it would make more sense to have one Religious-study and web-filtered distribution.

The goal is to promote Religious learning, why not make one distro so we can learn about both. Learning what motivates people helps us understand their actions and helps humanize the people who take the actions.

I've also posted this on the ME blog.

Am I missing something?

[Tru]

Yes, you missed something.

We are Christians not Muslims and as Christians we believe in one God and that one can only be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. We also believe that if you do not accept Jesus Christ's atoning death on the cross that you will be condemned to an eternity in hell. The Bible is Gods written word and that there is no other way to be saved except to believe and ask for forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. Jesus said " I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Hence there are no other faiths of which one can be saved and as Christian we believe that we are saved through faith not works. No one can earn there way into heaven because we are all sinners and that is why God sent His son to be a Holy sacrifice for the worlds sin. All one has to do to be saved is ask for that gift of forgiveness and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So with that said, those are some of the big reasons we as Christians would not make a combined distro. We are not trying to spread religion only the truth which is Jesus Christ is Lord and the one and only true God. It would not make a lot of sense for us as Christians to make a combined distro that contains something we do not believe to be true. If you were a Republican and made a distro that contained software that supported your beliefs and morals as a Republican would you then combine your distro to try and support the opposite belief system of Democrats and their morals? It wouldn't make sense to do something like that.

[jonathonblake]

I view the creation of a separate Ubuntu ME and CE as a tragedy.

a)Why leave Ubuntu Satanic Edition out in the cold?

b) Ubuntu Christian Edition and Ubuntu Muslim Edition are aimed at two groups that are radically different in core theology.

You have similar goals and interests, and it would make more sense to have one Religious-study and web-filtered distribution.

Does that mean that a developer of, say, UbuntuThelemic Edition should work with Jeremy and Mehdi? On a personal level, I can't see either of those individuals agreeing to any aspects of the theology of Thelema?

I'm trying to imagine a set of web filters that would satisfy the requirements of a Muslim, a Christian, and a Thelemite. Web-tracking and add-blocking might be the only points in common.

The goal is to promote Religious learning, why not make one distro so we can learn about both.

The idea behind each of those distributions is for the user to grow in their faith. A Christian probably does not want to hear an Inman calling people to Salat five times a day. A Muslim probably does not want to recite the Rosary four times a day. Neither of those would want to perform Resh, if the hypothetical Ubuntu Thelemic Edition was created.

Learning what motivates people helps us understand their actions and helps humanize the people who take the actions.

To that end a study of their scriptures and practices would be more useful than a distro aimed at the needs of an individual believes and practices a specific religion.

A set of DVDs of the content on Sacred-texts.com and Project Gutenburg will provide more usable information in learning about different religions than even a generic "religious" distro will.

Am I missing something?

Currently, there are released distributions for two religions. I think that work on a distro for two other religions is in progress.

Tools that adherents of one religion find useful, are probably not going to be useful for adherents of another religion.

xan

jonathon

[mhancoc7]

I view the creation of a separate Ubuntu ME and CE as a tragedy. You have similar goals and interests, and it would make more sense to have one Religious-study and web-filtered distribution.

The goal is to promote Religious learning, why not make one distro so we can learn about both. Learning what motivates people helps us understand their actions and helps humanize the people who take the actions.

I've also posted this on the ME blog.

Am I missing something?

Hi,
Your points are valid. However, my goal when creating Ubuntu CE was to bring Linux to Christians. I have always openly supported Ubuntu ME. I think what they are doing is great for Muslims. I may not agree on all of our religious views, but I appreciate and applaud their efforts.

I think a "Ubuntu Religious Studies Edition" would be great. The idea for a distro for those wanting to study religion as a whole would be great. That is just not the goal of Ubuntu CE.

Thanks, Jereme Hancock
Ubuntu CE Developer

[ridetheteapot]

Ubuntu Religious Studies Edition
that would be worth a wiki article.
both ME and CE lost the article for good reasons, and I am saying that after prejudicially thinking the opposite...

if you could put together a distro with the common utilities of both as in accountability and web filtering software. combined with changing the basic 'add/remove' menu found on the ubuntu start menu to include options for EITHER CE OR ME study software or whatever other religions might want to get involved (as well as exclude software that doesn't suit these ends). you could include themes and wallpaper and that fun stuff that suits either selection.

personally i think thats why you lost the wiki article, you need to do it the UNIX Way...
your current approach i think does not follow that perticular cannon.... the other thing that needs to be done is get rid of automatix; you need at least your own 3rd party bin installer to deal with your windows program and make everything a little more polished.

anyway good luck


------EDIT

hey and maybe add a kiosk like mode to keep ADD from interfering with what CE seems to be for (study i assume)
if you really could get all this software together in a nice way maybe with some (nice flash bible animations for boot up ;)) you might see these PCs in religious schools.

[jonathonblake]

include options for EITHER CE OR ME study software or whatever other religions might want to get involved

Ubuntu Muslim Edition more or less requires a DVD to include the essential components. UME 8.04 is on track for requiring 2 DVDs.
(The second DVD is purely for packages that are Muslim orientated.)

Ubuntu Christian Edition should be distributed as a DVD, so that "essential" programs aren't removed from it. (This would also enable it to include more resources for the Bible Study Software it includes.)

I haven't tracked the size of the themes, etc available for Ubuntu Satanic Edition. My guess is that everything released by that project can be put on a single CD.

An "Ubuntu Religious Edition" distro would probably come in at 8 DVDs.

DVD # 1: Generic Ubuntu;
DVD # 2: Ubuntu Christian Edition specific tools;
DVD # 3: Ubuntu Muslim Edition specific tools;
DVD # 4: Ubuntu Muslim Edition specific tools;
DVD # 5: Ubuntu Satanic Edition themes, etc. (This DVD can also contain other themes and eye candy.)
DVD # 6: Ichthux;
DVD # 7: ChrisTux
DVD # 8: Tools for other religions;

DVD # 8 would include tools for Jews, Baha'i, Thelemites, Bhuddists, etc. There are a smattering of such tools on Sourceforge. I suspect that there are a number of others that could be persuaded to run using WINE. Gaps could be filled by writing the "missing" software. (This is probably the wrong place to discuss what would be included on such a DVD.)

personally i think thats why you lost the wiki article, you need to do it the UNIX Way.

The UNIX way being one small program that performs one task. Scaling that to distros it means one distro aimed at one function.
IOW, the Unix way is the way that things are currently being done.

automatix; you need at least your own 3rd party bin installer to deal with your windows program and make everything a little more polished.

Ubuntu Muslim Edition is proceeding in that direction much faster than Ubuntu Christian Edition. But both are going in that direction.

hey and maybe add a kiosk like mode to keep ADD from interfering with what CE seems to be for (study i assume)

Might be worthwhile to include.

you might see these PCs in religious schools.

That probably is due more to a lack of volunteers to demo the software, than anything else.

xan

jonathon

[ridetheteapot]

i wasnt trying to be confrontational. i did mean what i said seriously.

i don't know the specifics on bible study programs size maybe they are to big for this idea. just the packages alone for religous packages for ME and CE could not actually take up more then 4 gigs??? if so i had no idea. And i really hadnt even thought about it, cause i have an internet connection so i apt-get what i need, and hadn't taken into account the need for the physical media.
i was thinking more along the lines of the add/remove programs app (not synaptic) what would give you nice categories based on the religion of the installers choosing.

ubuntu se is a joke there is no reason to assume anyone would want that in the hypothetical religious edition. Obviously ichthux and the other religious distros could just be picked apart for the good apps, no need in having the whole os on a sepreate cd.

as for all the other religions that have software available for linux it would have to be up to people enthusiastic enough to get it included...

if i had caught the ubuntu ME thread on this topic i would have said the same thing about automatix and wine (hey i'll say that im more interested in goobuntu then ubuntu for this reason)...

i agree with the topic starter that have net filtering and your accountability software would be a foundation for the rest of the project. Maybe the kiosk too...

o well

[jonathonblake]

i did mean what i said seriously.

I took it as a serious suggestion. It is just that at this stage of the game, retrofitting Ubuntu Christian Edition and Ubuntu Muslim Edition is going to be extremely difficult.

One could start with a "clean" plate, so to speak, for a distro that includes programs for religions other than Christianity and Islam.
With each "religion' being a metapackage.

(For the rest of this post UCE refers to Ubuntu Christian Edition, and UME refers to Ubuntu Muslim Edition.)

A couple of things that might make the task easier:
* UCE has a "religion" thing on the start menu like UME;
* UME uses the same scripts for Dansguardian as UCE;
* UCE, UME, and Ubuntu Satanic Edition use the standard way to install themes, wallpaper, and the like;

There are a couple of other things, but I don't remember them offhand. :(

maybe they are to big for this idea.

They aren't.

just the packages alone for religous packages for ME and CE could not actually take up more then 4 gigs???

Because of the license, e-Sword resources can't be included with Ubuntu Christian Edition. The e-Sword CD is roughly 700 MB in size. (FWIW, it would be fairly easy to create a 4 GB DVD of e-Sword resources.)

Extrapolating from the e-Sword CD, The Sword Project files would be roughly 700 MB in size. I don't remember if the directory size of the Virtual Rosary was 100 MB, or if that was the size of the files I downloaded. (I suspect it is the former.) A complete installation of all resources for The Word is roughly 500 MB download.

The Athan files currently are in OGG format. The projection is that in future both OGG and MP3 will be provided. A number of sets will be provided, for users. (Athan is the term for the call made by an Inman to tell the people that it is time for their prayers. And then guide them through the prayer.)

I don't remember the size of the files for the Q'ran in UME. A number of paraphrases into other languages are included. (I hope that UME fixed that bug. The Q'ran, by definition, can not be translated into any language. The best that can be done is a paraphrase in another language.)

For UME 7.04, the DVD was recommended, because it was far more complete. The big difference between the CD and DVD was the athan files, and audio file of the Q'ran.

hadn't taken into account the need for the physical media.

Physical media allow for Live-CDs, so a person can try it out, without committing themselves to the new OS. It also enables one to install the software without having to have an Internet connection. (I can't hook my windows box up to the Internet, because there are no drivers for the network card, and no password for the wireless router. When Comcast installed the router, they did not give me a legible password for that router.)

I was thinking more along the lines of the add/remove programs app (not synaptic) what would give you nice categories based on the religion of the installers choosing.

OK. That makes more sense.

ubuntu se is a joke there is no reason to assume anyone would want that in the hypothetical religious edition.

That was so that it didn't feel left out in the cold.

Obviously ichthux and the other religious distros could just be picked apart for the good apps, no need in having the whole os on a separate cd.

Ichthux is built around KDE. I know it can be installed over UCE, without losing any UCE applications. I don't remember what it adds to UCE, other than themes and other eye-candy.

ChrisTux is a Spanish language Linux distribution. They are stuck between the lack of Bible Study Software for Catholics, and a lack of Spanish language texts of the Bible.

as for all the other religions that have software available

a) I suspect that most adherents aren't aware of the existing tools for their faith;

b) Prayer programs, and scripture memory programs should be adaptable for the different religions. For studying sacred texts, the simplest solution is to point people to sacred-texts.com.

net filtering and your accountability software would be a foundation for the rest of the project. Maybe the kiosk too.l

The Net filtering software that UCE uses required several changes to the way Ubuntu is installed. I'm not sure that non-UCE will be willing to make those changes to their distro.

I havent' looked at the accountability software, to know how well it works. Or how easy it would be to segregate out of the program.

Kiosk mode is a possibility.

xan

jonathon