Presentation of Nasgaïa
The Nasgaïa project was initiated by Martial Daumas, who was looking for a GNU/Linux distribution suited to his needs, but wasn't able to find any. He surely wanted to have fun too :-).
the distribution started from an Linux From Scratch (LFS) which gradually turned into a real distribution. The no return point was the creation of the Ncooker concept, the packaging system, which has propeled the project in a new dimension, giving it the touch which makes Nasgaïa different.
But apart from this, the project is above all an adventure between people having the same goal : to dispose of a GNU/Linux distribution 100% free, sharing knowledge and ideas.
To ensure this ideal, the entire project is governed by a Charter which has been voted by the members of the Ethical Counsel, themselves elected by the instigator of the project.
What caracterize Nasgaïa ?
Ethical side
The Nasgaïa project has experienced and evolved to nowadays in the same goal, with its problems and gladness, but never diverging from its finality. This moral stability comes from the foundations of the project, which dictate the human directives before being interested by technical problems.
Thus, as the GNU project, protected from deviations by its GPL license, we can say that Nasgaïa is proteced by its Charter, which dwell on human values. To know more, read this Charter. In another domain, used licenses have a strong importance for us.
Finaly, we're here to have fun, so let's do it in the best mood possible.
Techincal side
the basis technical principles of Nasgaïa are :
- to provide a coherent software set ; in other terms to avoid to provide several software having the same role ;
- to dispose of a suffisant software set, without being too big (the installation of the distribution must hold on only one CD) ;
- to permit the add, quick and easy, of software, from source files or compiled Nasgaïa packages (more informations are given for this principle below) ;
- to officialy provide only 100% free software or documents (GPL or not, if the free spirit is kept intact) ;
- to have a system has transparent as possible, avoiding to put layers between original software and the final utilization (including as installation or administration tools as software content).
Standards side
As described in the Charter, Nasgaïa is a way to have fun, facilitating computer access, and information in general. So it seems normal that the project follows in the best way the strandards or recomandations indisputable. Among them, we find :
- a filesystem based on FHS, and a communication on this project mailing list when doubts occur ;
- an integrated Desktop following the specifications of FreeDesktop ;
- respect of web standards to make the project web site (XHTML, CSS and accessibility policy) ;
- use of the XML format for the documentations ;
- sensitization of our visitors advocating browsers conforming to web good practices.
