In this paper we present a deterministic CONGEST algorithm to compute an $O(kDelta)$-vertex coloring in $O(Delta/k)+log^* n$ rounds, where $Delta$ is the maximum degree of the network graph and $1leq kleq O(Delta)$ can be freely chosen. The algorithm is extremely simple: Each node locally computes a sequence of colors and then it tries colors from the sequence in batches of size $k$. Our algorithm subsumes many important results in the history of distributed graph coloring as special cases, including Linials color reduction [Linial, FOCS87], the celebrated locally iterative algorithm from [Barenboim, Elkin, Goldenberg, PODC18], and various algorithms to compute defective and arbdefective colorings. Our algorithm can smoothly scale between these and also simplifies the state of the art $(Delta+1)$-coloring algorithm. At the cost of losing the full algorithms simplicity we also provide a $O(kDelta)$-coloring algorithm in $O(sqrt{Delta/k})+log^* n$ rounds. We also provide improved deterministic algorithms for ruling sets, and, additionally, we provide a tight characterization for one-round color reduction algorithms.
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