Participation in digital life is a matter of course for many people. Those who have to turn over every cent several times, on the other hand, often have no opportunity to invest in computers, tablets and smartphones. Aid organizations such as the Emmaus Brotherhood in France help those affected by setting up and passing on donated computers with free software.

The Linux distribution EmmaDE of the Emmabuntüs collective emerged from this motivation and is now available in version 1. 03. Two factors are always the focus of development: EmmaDE should work well on old and very old hardware and be easy to use and modify for aid organizations.

New version focused on “Reuse for all” Central innovation in EmmaDE3 1. 03 is the implementation of a customizable “OEM installation mode” based on Calamares. Aid organizations that have been given a whole batch of identical computers will in future be able to create a single matching EmmaDE image and then install it automatically. In this way, according to the developers, it takes less than 64 seconds to supply a single old PC with a fresh operating system.

The implementation and introduction of the new installation mode is not a solo effort by the EmmaDE developers, but part of a larger reuse campaign that the Emmabuntüs collective launched at the beginning of September together with the Debian-Facile, Blabla Linux and Tugaleres.com launched. The release announcement for EmmaDE3 1. also links (albeit in French) videos of the implementation the new installation mode in Blabla Linux.

The new mode is technically implemented via the multi-image bootloader LiveUSB. This makes it possible to select one of several images stored on a USB stick, which the system then starts. Supplied scripts allow a variety of modifications to the standard images.

(Image: emmabuntus.org)

Solid Debian base refreshed The DE in EmmaDE stands for “Debian Edition” in contrast to earlier versions that were based on Ubuntu. EmmaDE3 1. 03 based on Debian GNU / Linux 10. 6. Its software is no longer brand new, but it is completely sufficient for everyday needs. Especially since a little model update was carried out as part of the update: Firefox ESR, Thunderbird and VeraCrypt were updated. In addition, there are various new drivers for peripheral devices, primarily printers.

As before, Xfce is used as the standard desktop environment, which is careful with the resources of its host system; alternatively, LXQt can also be selected. The Warpinator, which was taken over from Linux Mint and simplifies the exchange of files between different systems, has also been added.

Furthermore, the developers in EmmaDE3 1. 03 the support for zRAM has been significantly improved. On systems with little memory, zRAM ensures that the system only starts using the swap space later when the memory is full. This is made possible by a kernel function that first compresses the RAM contents before accessing the swap space.

EmmaDE3 1. 03: Download and installation Further details on the new version can be found in the release announcement for EmmaDE3 1. 03. On the official EmmaDE download page there is one 32 – and one 64 – Bit version of the new version ready.

Who in the course of the new OEM / Reuse for all mode USB sticks will find links to Clonezilla ISOs in various languages ​​as well as a detailed description of the procedure on a separate information page.

Topic page “Linux and Open Source” at heise online (ovw)