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https://github.com/eyedeekay/i2pdistro

Re-creating an I2P Linux Distro
https://github.com/eyedeekay/i2pdistro

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Re-creating an I2P Linux Distro

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# i2pdistro



Re-creating an I2P Linux Distro



[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/eyedeekay/i2pdistro.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/eyedeekay/i2pdistro)



Mission

=======



Get more people involved in participatory use of the I2P network by expanding

our onboarding options and better supporting our available tooling for sysadmins

and application developers.



This is a "Convenience Product" intended to lower barriers to entry.



Why(s)

------



### Why a distro



For better or worse, I assume that reddit is a guage of what users who are less

familiar with I2P specifically expect of an anonymous network. "Is there an I2P

Linux Distro" or "Is iPredia still alive" or questions about I2P use in Whonix

or TAILS is a very frequently asked question on reddit, my take on this is that

people want something, and my guess is that they want a turn-key way to take

advantage of the features the I2P network provides.



### Why another distro



I actually hate the term distro. Most distros are substantially just PPA's, and

PPA's are just package repositories. Crunchbang and it's descendants are good

examples of this, they're so close to Debian you can literally run a ~15 line

script that will turn Debian into Crunchbang. What we're really creating when

we create a distro is a package repository, package list, and pre-configured

install media, sometimes with a bootable system installed(LiveCD).



I2P can make better use of these capabilities than most distros because of it's

use as a network for hosting hidden services. Where Crunchbang uses it's

repositories to do basically one-time tweaks to user's desktop environment, we

can use these facilities to automatically configure many existing internet

applications to work with I2P, reducing the installation of most services to

a single command and zero configuration.



Even for non-sysadmins, this will function as a turnkey, minimalist desktop

distribution for users of I2P. I2P will be pre-installed and pre-configured, as

will I2P browser. Vanilla Firefox via the package manager will also be

pre-configured to work with I2P in a manner corresponding to the I2P Profile

Bundle. I2P applications will be intgrated into the desktop, it will use Snark

as a default torrent client.



As the design study noted, most people never make it to IRC. Mattermost was

almost a solution but hasn't panned out. For the distro I think something

simpler is possible. Pick a pretty, user-friendly IRC client and package an I2P

based configuration for it. Put it on the user's desktop as "I2P Chat".



### Why not TAILS or Whonix



While we love TAILS and no one is ruling out working with TAILS, the goal of

this project is different and inherently conflicts with TAILS. When using TAILS

your identity is supposed to be un-recoverable from the system when the system

powers down. This is suitable for many, many threat models but it is not ideal

for long-term participants in a hidden service network. It can be done, but

TAILS may not be the correct tool for the job and our needs are somewhat, but

not quite entirely, mutually exclusive. That said, there is at least one thing

that TAILS and this distro will both need, and solving this problem will get us

closer to inclusion in TAILS.



Official inclusion in Whonix is dependent on inclusion in Debian, but we may be

able to generate VM Images of the style used for Qubes-Whonix independently

while working on that problem. Currently regarding this as a major stretch goal

but I might be able to get some help on it.



### What about applications?



We'll do those too, in fact, making an effort to deliver Bote as a Debian

package in a standalone, non-plugin way way will probably help me understand

more about how to un-bundle and deliver the default I2P applications normally

delivered with the router today.



Besides that, having a Unix platform with self-configuring I2P packages lets us do

things like let non-Java, non-JVM, or otherwise un-bundleable applications

depend on Debian packages that exist solely to ensure that specific API's are

enabled. Retroshare could make sure that it has installed ```meta-i2p-bob```,

SAM libraries can ensure that they have ```meta-i2p-sam``` installed.



Roadmap

=======