Like your Ubuntu-based Linux distributions a little more free? There’s a brand new LTS release of Trisquel ready for download.
Trisquel is endorsed by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation and (rather surprisingly) one of only a handful of 100% free “GNU/Linux distributions” to be based on Ubuntu. The other well-known option, gNewSense, switched over to Debian last year.
Trisquel ‘actively rejects’ the use of non-free firmware, drivers and applications that are included in upstream Ubuntu. It argues that such inclusion, while a crutch, only serves to “perpetuate” the problem of non-free alternatives.
“We want your software to be feature-rich and work exactly as you expect it to. But we’ll never compromise your freedom, either,” reads the website FAQ.
New in Trisquel 7 LTS
Trisquel 7 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and is supported until 2019. It offers:
- ‘Libre’ Linux 3.13 Kernel (low latency, bfq scheduling enabled)
- Desktop based on GNOME 3.12 Flashback
- Abrowser 33 (a free Firefox derivative) as default browser¹
- Install image now 1.5GB ‘DVD-size’
- Applications include LibreOffice, GIMP, Lifrea and Pidgin
Editions based on LXDE and the Sugar Learning environment are also available.
Download Trisquel 7
Downloads in 32bit and 64bit flavours are available direct from the official website. I do recommend grabbing the download via the official torrent.