The GNU/Linux operating system is widely known as a robust base for running Internet servers, but has not reached yet a similar audience as a platform of choice for the musician and the multimedia artist. The DeMuDi project targets one reason of this issue, the lack of a GNU/Linux distribution oriented toward music and multimedia.

The Demudi project (for Debian Multimedia Distribution) aims to provide for the musician and artist a GNU/Linux distribution dedicated to music and multimedia that would ease installing and customizing GNU/Linux for their needs. Demudi is not actually a distribution in itself. Taking advantage of the existing Debian distribution, it enhances a Debian distribution by a collection of packages containing music and multimedia applications or development tools. The Debian distribution has been chosen, because it is the only distribution that is developed entirely by volunteers over the Internet, just like a significant part of the GNU system, the Linux kernel and many applications. Additionally, it supports several different hardware architectures.