Debian, remaining true to its initial principles, has had so much success that, today, it has reached a tremendous size. The 11 architectures offered cover 9 hardware architectures and 2
kernels (Linux and FreeBSD). Furthermore, with more than 14,500 source packages, the available software can meet almost any need that one could have, whether at home or in the enterprise.
This largess becomes, sometimes, an embarrassment of riches: it is really unreasonable to distribute 50 CD-ROMs to install a complete version on an Intel machine... This is why we think of
Debian ever increasingly as a “meta-distribution”, from which one extracts more specific distributions intended for a particular public: Debian-Desktop for traditional office use, Debian-Edu
for education and pedagogical use in an academic environment, Debian-Med for medical applications, Debian-Junior for young children, etc. A more complete list can be found in the section
dedicated to that purpose, see Section 1.3.3.1, “Existing Debian Sub-Projects” (page 16).
These divisions are organized in a well-defined framework, thus guaranteeing hassle-free compatibility between the various “sub-distributions”. All of them follow the general planning for
release of new versions. Built on the same foundation, they can be easily extended, completed, and personalized with applications available in the Debian repositories.
All of the Debian tools operate in this direction: debian-cd has for a long time now allowed the creation of a set of CD-ROMs bearing only pre-selected packages; debian-installer is also a
modular installer, easily adapted to special needs. APT will install packages from various origins, while guaranteeing the overall cohesion of the system.
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