The release of a completely free Linux distribution Trisquel 10.0, based on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS package base and focused on use in small businesses, educational institutions and home users, saw the light of day. Trisquel is personally endorsed by Richard Stallman, officially recognized as completely free software by the Free Software Foundation, and placed on the foundation's list of recommended distributions. Installation images are available for download, 2.7 GB and 1.2 GB in size (x86_64, armhf). The release of updates for the distribution will be carried out until April 2025.
The distribution is notable for the exclusion from distribution of all non-free components, such as binary drivers, firmware, and graphics elements distributed under a non-free license or using registered trademarks. Despite the complete rejection of proprietary components, Trisquel is compatible with Java (OpenJDK), supports most audio and video formats, including working with protected DVDs, while using only completely free implementations of these technologies. MATE (default), LXDE and KDE are offered as desktops.
In the new release:
- The formation of assemblies for the i686 architecture has been stopped, but assemblies for the ARM architecture (armhf) have been added. In the future, it is planned to implement support for ARM64 and PowerPC architectures.
- Migration from Ubuntu 18.04 package base to Ubuntu 20.04 branch.
- Up to version 5.4, a completely free version of the Linux kernel, Linux Libre, has been updated, cleared of proprietary firmware and drivers containing non-free components. Packages with kernels 5.8 and 5.13 are available as options.
- The MATE desktop has been updated to version 1.24. Optional user environments LXDE 0.99.2 and KDE 5.18 are available for installation.
- Updated software versions, including Abrowser (renamed Firefox) 96.0, Icedove (Thunderbird) 91.5.0, LibreOffice 7.1.7, VLC 3.0.9.2, Xorg 7.7, GLibc 2.31.
Basic requirements for completely free distributions:
- Inclusion in the distribution kit of software with FSF-approved licenses;
- Inadmissibility of supplying binary firmware (firmware) and any binary components of drivers;
- Not accepting immutable functional components, but the possibility of including non-functional ones, subject to 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, the terms of use of which prevent the free copying and distribution of the entire distribution kit or part of it;
- Compliance with the purity of the licensed documentation, the inadmissibility of documentation that recommends the installation of proprietary software to solve certain problems.
The following projects are currently included in the list of completely free GNU/Linux distributions:
- Dragora is an independent distribution that promotes the idea of ββmaximum architectural simplification;
- ProteanOS is a standalone distribution that is evolving towards being as compact as possible;
- Dynebolic - a specialized distribution for processing video and audio data (no longer developed - the last release was September 8, 2011);
- Hyperbola is based on stabilized slices of the Arch Linux package base with some patches ported from Debian to improve stability and security. The project is developed in accordance with the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and is aimed at providing users with a simple, lightweight, stable and secure environment.
- Parabola GNU/Linux is a distribution based on the work of the Arch Linux project;
- PureOS - based on the Debian package base and developed by Purism, which develops the Librem 5 smartphone and releases laptops that come with this distribution and CoreBoot-based firmware;
- Trisquel is an Ubuntu-based custom distribution for small businesses, home users, and educational institutions;
- Ututo is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Gentoo.
- libreCMC (libre Concurrent Machine Cluster), a specialized distribution designed for use in embedded devices such as wireless routers.
- Guix is ββbased on the Guix package manager and the GNU Shepherd (previously known as GNU dmd) init system written in the Guile language (an implementation of the Scheme language), which is also used to define service start parameters.
Source: opennet.ru