“Parsix GNU/Linux is a new twist on an old theme. It is one of a number of remixes of the Kanotix/Knoppix line, but with some very interesting differences. First off is the fact that it is centered around, and tailored to users of Persian languages and keyboards, while also being very usable in English. The next big difference is that Parsix uses the GNOME desktop instead of the standard KDE Desktop found in most of these remastered distros. But is there more to Parsix than just a different DE and language? The answer to that question is a definite ‘yes’.”
however Distrowatch has an interesting interview with the Parsix developer Alan Baghumian.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060123#interview
I’m not a great fan of GNOME but I still find it strange that most of the Debian based popular live-cd’s (Knoppix, Kanotix, SimplyMepis) have chosen KDE. Yea, there’s the Ubuntu live-cd but it’s not really as mature as the KDE live-cd’s. On the other hand, a big part of Ubuntu’s popularity came from being the only GNOME centric Debian based distro — this gave the impression that Ubuntu had something special to offer. Well, now there’s Parsix (based on Kanotix) with GNOME, so Ubuntu has finally got some competition, which is always a good thing. 🙂
Here are the obligatory screenshots:
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=560&slide=1…
It may have something to do with the personal preference of Klaus Knopper, the Debian developer behind Knoppix (and therefore the inspiration of derived distributions such as Kanotix, Morphix, SimplyMepis- note that I’m saying they STARTED with inspiration from Knoppix, not that they have anything to do with it now…)
At least, I’m guessing that it’s Klaus Knopper’s preference since he’s using it in a LiveCD and I don’t know of any reason Gnome couldn’t be similarly shrunken to fit (it was, apparently, up until Knoppix 3.1 and coexists on the DVDs and the C’T special edition of Knoppix 3.4)
There are other Debian-based distributions using GNOME as their default DE.
One that comes to my mind now is aGNUla/DeMuDi (= a GNU/Linux Audio distribution or a Debian Multimedia/Music Distribution):
http://demudi.agnula.org/
http://www.agnula.org/
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=demudi
Although one might think that DeMuDi is a very specialized distro with its tweaked kernels optimized for music production, it is still practically a 100% Debian compatible distro. Actually I’ve found it to be quite a handy way to install Debian with a GNOME desktop.
To make DeMuDi 100% Debian, just add the official Debian repositoies to APT’s sources.list, and remove the cdd & demudi packages (that control all the DeMuDi-related customizations).
The only downside I’ve found with DeMuDi is that it doesn’t seem to use gpg signed APT repositories yet.
Edited 2006-01-29 20:44