After three years since the publication of the previous version, the release of the fully free Linux distribution Trisquel 12.0 has been announced. This version is based on the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package base and is aimed at use in small businesses, educational institutions, and by home users. Trisquel is personally endorsed by Richard Stallman and is officially recognized by the Free Software Foundation as fully free, included in the Foundation's list of recommended distributions. Downloadable installation images are available, sized at 3.4 GB (MATE), 2.7 GB (KDE), 1.9 GB (LXDE), 1.5 GB (Sugar), and 79 MB (netboot), generated for x86_64, ppc64el, arm64, and armhf architectures. Updates for the distribution will be released until April 2029.
The distribution is notable for excluding all non-free components, such as binary drivers, firmware, and graphical elements that are distributed under non-free licenses or use registered trademarks. Despite the complete abandonment of proprietary components, Trisquel is compatible with Java (OpenJDK) and supports most audio and video formats, including work with protected DVDs, using only fully free implementations of these technologies. The default desktop environments offered are MATE, LXDE, and KDE.
In the new release:
- The transition from the Ubuntu 22.04 package base to the Ubuntu 24.04 branch has been completed.
- The fully free version of the Linux kernel β Linux Libre β has been updated to version 6.8 (was 5.15), cleaned of proprietary firmware and drivers containing non-free components. The modularity of the kernel delivery has been enhanced.
- To enhance security, the AppArmor rules for graphical environments have been revised.
- The APT package manager has been updated to branch 3.0, and the repository settings have been switched to use the deb822 format.
- Included are the web browsers GNU IceCat and ungoogled-chromium, in addition to the previously supplied Abrowser (a Firefox build from Trisquel developers).
- The MATE desktop has been updated to version 1.26.1. Optionally available for installation are the LXDE 0.99.2, KDE Plasma 5.27, and Sugar 0.121 (an educational environment for children).
- Software versions have been updated, including fresh versions of LibreOffice, yt-dlp, Inkscape, Nextcloud Desktop, Kdenlive, Tuba, 0 A.D., fastfetch, and many other applications available in the backports.
Main requirements for fully free distributions:
- Inclusion of software with approved FSF licenses in the distribution;
- Prohibition on the delivery of binary firmware and any binary driver components;
- The rejection of immutable functional components, but the possibility of including non-functional ones, provided there is permission to copy and distribute them for commercial and non-commercial purposes (for example, CC BY-ND maps for a GPL game);
- The inadmissibility of using trademarks whose terms of use hinder free copying and distribution of the entire distribution or any of its parts;
- Compliance with the licensing purity of documentation, the inadmissibility of documentation that recommends the installation of proprietary software to solve specific tasks.
Currently, in addition to Trisquel, the following projects are included in the list of completely free GNU/Linux distributions:
- Dragora β an independent distribution promoting the idea of maximum architectural simplicity;
- Dynebolic β a specialized distribution for processing video and audio data (no longer in development β the last release was on September 8, 2011);
- Guix β based on the Guix package manager and the GNU Shepherd initialization system (formerly known as GNU dmd), written in the Guile language (one of the implementations of the Scheme language), which is also used for defining service launch parameters.
- Hyperbola β based on stabilized snapshots of the Arch Linux package base with certain patches inherited from Debian for improved stability and security. The project develops according to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle and aims to provide users with a simple, lightweight, stable, and secure environment.
- Parabola GNU/Linux β a distribution based on the developments of the Arch Linux project;
- PureOS β based on the Debian package base and developed by Purism, which develops the Librem 5 smartphone and produces laptops that come with this distribution and firmware based on CoreBoot;
- libreCMC (libre Concurrent Machine Cluster), a specialized distribution designed for use in embedded devices such as wireless routers.
- ProteanOS β a standalone distribution evolving towards achieving the smallest possible size;
Source: opennet.ru
