Interview with Patrick one of the men behind Emmabuntüs

Today I want to present you Emmabuntüs  a Linux distribution derived from Ubuntu and designed to facilitate the repacking of computers donated to Emmaüs Communities.
The name itself is a combination of two words: Ubuntu and Emmaüs.

Emmabuntüs 2 has been released on July 21 2013 and it’s based on Xubuntu 12.04 LTS, this is because the team want a Long Term support base distribution, and with this version you can be sure to have support for 5 years.

But let’s see some detail of this distribution.

Some of the features of this distribution includes:

Emmabuntüs 2 can be installed, in its entirety, without an Internet connection as all of the required packages are included within the disk image. The disk image includes packages for multiple languages and also optional non-free codecs that the user can choose whether to install or not.

One gigabyte of RAM is required for the live mode of Emmabuntüs 2, however the full installation requires less, at least 512 megabytes of RAM to start correctly.

Emmabuntüs 2 includes browsers plug-ins for parental control

There are three docks to choose from to simplify access to the software and are defined by the type of user (children, beginners and “all”)

Interview with Patrick

Hello and thanks for answering my questions Patrick.
How is born the idea of this project ?

In May 2010, I’ve been involved as a volunteer repackaging of computers in the Emmaus community Neuilly-Plaisance Community. Seeing the amount of work needed to refurbish computers manually, I began to develop a set of scripts to automate this task in Windows XP (removal of personal data and programs installed, hard drive defragmentation, system updates to the operating system, installing a thirty Free Software for family use and a dock) so as not to alter the original license, and allow the new user to continue to benefit legally.
Without this operation license was permanently lost.

The dock and additional Free software was chosen to achieve two objectives: firstly, to provide a solution equivalent or better than a conventional solution or owner provided in store, on the other hand, go to the zero return, thanks ease of use and reliability of the whole. Thus, these reconditioned machinery made ​​more attractive to sell more easily.
Thereafter, noting that many machines were given diskless, we had the idea to make a script to install this set of Free and Dock on a Linux distribution: Ubuntu 10.04 , replicating the basic ideas used for the completion of reconditioning machines running Windows XP.

We then presented our work at the Ubuntu-Party 10.10 Paris (October 2010), to educate others on the need:
• develop and promote a distribution tailored to Add reconditioning of machines in the Emmaus communities in the Paris region,
• to help these communities to rehabilitate and sell machines for a beginner that usually does not know the Linux distributions.

During the Ubuntu Party I had the chance to meet Gerard and Hervé, who convinced me to create an ISO to install distribution without Internet connection and Quentin of Framasoft offered to do an interview to present the work on the Framablog in January 2011. After this interview the core that would form the Collective Emmabuntüs was joined by David who helped spread the ISO on Sourceforge, and from March 2011, Morgan broadcast on FreeTorrent.

Since then, the Collective Emmabuntüs active promotion of the Linux distribution Emmabuntüs for the simplified reconditioning of used machines.

How do you compare Emmabuntüs toward the other GNU/Linux distributions and why someone should use it ?

The main feature of this distribution is that it wants to “sleek, accessible, equitable”.
Sleek to install and use, Accessible to exchange data with systems with proprietary formats, Equitable in the choice of installation or non proprietary formats, but it is also an allusion to the reason for the birth of this distribution: aid to Emmaus. Bloggers independent translated it by talking about Emmabuntüs 2: « El Xubuntu humanitario », « All-Inclusive French Resort », « Multifunktional Kompakter Allrounder für ältere Computer» or « Emmabuntüs 2 pour tous et pour tout faire ».

How many people are collaborating with you on the project ?

The Collectif Emabuntüs are about twenty people, but we are working with Jerry projects, JerryClan Ivory Coast in particular, but also with PC de L’Espoir, the Festival de la Récup, and more than 5 Cyberspaces are use Emmabuntüs, and 5 LUG help Emmabuntüs projet.

Thanks for all Patrick, anything you might like to add?

We would like to help to promote Emmabuntüs Italy, and that we need people to help with the translations of our wiki and our presentation on Wikipedia.
Or to create a blog dedicated to Emmabuntüs. As Igor made ​​in Brazil: http://emmabuntusbrasil.blogspot.fr/

You can find us on our Forum or on our Facebook Page

More info can be found at these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmabunt%C3%BCs Description of project and feature
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=emmabuntus English reviews of Emmabuntüs
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/29030-emmabuntus-2-v-1-05-installation-and-first-use Global presentation and Parental Control
and on us wiki http://wiki.emmabuntus.org Announcements, FAQ, Install, etc

Here you can found the last announcement http://emmabuntus.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/July_21th,_2013,_Emmabuntus_2_celebrates_M-Pregnancy, we speak about the collaboration of Emmabuntüs and the Jerry Project and the JerryClan Of Ivoiry Cost, with this video :

And a little description of collaboration of projects on http://slashdot.org/submission/2883269/jerry-a-do-it-together-server-that-connects-makers-in-africa

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