I was wondering which existing distribution could be the best base for a HEIG-VD Linux distribution.
At first, I thought Manaro would be the best to begin with, as it approaches the Arch way of thinking and is more stable.
But looking deeper than that, I then thought that Debian would be best. Then I realised that because it is too stable, there might be an issue with more recent hardwares.
Finally, my last thoughts were leaning towards Ubuntu, cleaned of all the bloatwares obviously.
As for the Desktop Environment, I would be keen on using KDE at first.
My experience with Linux has mostly been around Ubuntu and its more light-weight variants (L/Xubuntu). Recently though I’ve started using Debian with Xfce. That’s actually my setup when I work for my TB and I’m very satisfied with it.
I think that Backtrack was based on Ubuntu and then they moved to Debian with Kali. Kali also recently moved from Gnome to Xfce. So I think Debian/Xfce would be a solid choice.
Concerning the driver issue I can’t really say anything. Surely Kali must support all the newest hardware, but they are based on Debian testing so they get the updates very soon. My guess is that the drivers exist, it’s just a matter of getting them.
I agree with the assertion that Debian would be more lightweight and XFCE also.
On the last point, I agree that it would be wiser to use XFCE or i3 but KDE offers a “nicer” and more polished looks than the others. Also it offers a more complete experience.
As for Kali, it is a good compromise I guess but it might be too specific of a distribution for regular users.
Ubuntu offers the same principle as Kali but would be more generic and anyone could add the “plugins” they need or use a VM for a Kali experience.
Of course, I wasn’t advocating to use Kali as a base, it is too specific indeed. I just wanted to point out that over time, Kali/Backtrack moved from Ubuntu/Gnome to Debian/XFCE…
If your project is not only directed at TIC students, then indeed KDE might be a better choice. As for the base distro, IMO it would be better (in theory) to add stuff to Debian than to try to remove things from Ubuntu. But I have no idea of the difference in difficulty of these two tasks :).
That’s an excellent point !
Thanks for the input 
I don’t know either what task might be harder to do but I know for sure that user experience wise, Debian is kind of a nightmare for non-Linux users …
The main point of this distribution is to get people to use Linux in a wider fashion. Using Debian might over-complicate things for users.
Personnaly, I don’t have much experience in Debian so I might be the best person to talk about this distro.
As for XFCE, it might be a good compromise for the DE. KDE is nicer to look at but after some research, XFCE is way lighter and can use plugins to complete what’s missing.
Thanks agoin for the input