Trisquel (full name Trisquel GNU/Linux) is a computer

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

, a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

, derived from another distribution,

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

. The project aims for a fully

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

system without

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

and uses a version of Ubuntu's modified kernel, with the non-free code ( binary blobs) removed. Trisquel relies on user donations. Its logo is a triskelion, a Celtic symbol. Trisquel is listed by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

as a distribution that contains only free software.

Overview

Four basic versions are available.

Trisquel

The standard Trisquel distribution includes the MATE

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

and

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

(GUI), and English, Spanish and 48 other localizations, 50 in total, on a 2.9 GB live DVD image. Other translations can be downloaded if an internet connection is present during installation.

Trisquel Mini

Trisquel Mini is an alternative to mainline Trisquel, designed to run well on netbooks and older hardware. It uses the low-resource environment LXDE and lightweight GTK+ and

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

alternatives to GNOME and Qt-

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

applications. The LXDE desktop only includes English and Spanish localizations, and can install from a 1.5 GB live DVD image.

Triskel

Triskel is another alternative to mainline Trisquel using the

graphical interface, available as a 2.3 GB ISO DVD live image.

Trisquel Sugar TOAST

Sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

is a free and open source desktop environment designed with the goal of being used by children for interactive learning. Sugar replaces the standard MATE desktop environment available with Trisquel.

Trisquel NetInstall

NetInstall consists of a 25MB CD iso image with just the minimal amount of software to start the installation via a text based network installer and fetch the remaining packages over the Internet.

Internationalization

The full installation includes 51 languages ( Albanian,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Aranese, Asturian,

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

, Bulgarian, Catalan, Central Khmer,

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one that is simpler (usually shorter), according to a well-founded ordering. Examples include: ...

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...

, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English,

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian,

Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...

, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan, Punjabi, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish,

Valencian Valencian can refer to: * Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain * Something related to the city of Valencia * Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain * Something related to the old Kingdom of ...

and Vietnamese) pre-installed in a downloadable 1.2-gigabyte DVD image.

Source code

Source code for the full Trisquel 11 installation is also available in a downloadable of about 8.8 or 9.4-gigabyte tar file. The source code can also be obtained with a torrent file.

History

The project began in 2004 with sponsorship of the University of Vigo for

Galician language Galician ( , ), also known as Galego (), is a Iberian Romance languages, Western Ibero-Romance language. Around 2.4 million people have at least some degree of competence in the language, mainly in Galicia (Spain), Galicia, an Autonomo ...

support in education software and was officially presented in April 2005 with

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

, founder of the

GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...

, as a special guest. According to project director Rubén Rodríguez, the support for Galician has created interest in South American and Mexican communities of emigrants from the Province of Ourense. By December 2008, Trisquel was included by the

(FSF) in its list of GNU/Linux distributions endorsed by the Free Software Foundation.

Release history

The releases that use GNOME 3.x use GNOME Classic/Flashback, rather than the default GNOME Shell. Starting with version 6, Trisquel is based on the LTS Version of Ubuntu. Current versions include this common software: * ''Abrowser'', a rebranded version of

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

that never suggests non-free add-ons, and includes no

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

ed art or names. It features privacy enhancing modifications such as not starting network connections on its own. It is rebranded because the Mozilla Trademark Policy forbids modifications that include their trademark without consent. Prior editions: * '' Gnash'', a SWF viewer, instead of

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia ...

, which is proprietary software. Trisquel-edu

* ''Trisquel Pro'' was business-oriented and small. It was part of the Trisquel 2.0 LTS Robur (2008), but no other release followed. * ''Trisquel Edu'' was education-oriented, for schools and universities. Like Trisquel Pro, no other release followed Trisquel 2.0 Robur (2008). * ''Trisquel on Sugar'' was education-oriented, based on the

desktop environment for interactive learning for children. It was released at the same time as Trisquel 7. * ''Trisquel Gamer'' was an independent edition maintained by David Zaragoza. It included 55 free software games and could boot from a live DVD or USB drive. It was released with Trisquel 3.5 (2010), which is no longer supported.

Reception

Jesse Smith of DistroWatch reviewed the 4.0 release, Taranis, and described it as refined and dependable. He portrayed difficulty with removing software as his main problem with the release. He complimented it as an operating system that showcased utility instead of mere compliance with free software criteria. Jesse Smith also reviewed Trisquel 7.0 in 2014, writing "Whenever I boot up Trisquel I find myself wondering whether the free software only distribution will be able to hold its own when it comes to hardware drivers, multimedia support and productivity software. The answer I came to when running Trisquel 7.0 is that, yes, the distribution appears to be nearly as capable as operating systems that do not stick to the FSF's definition of free software. Some people who use hardware that requires binary blobs or non-free drivers may face problems and Flash support isn't perfect when using the free Gnash player, but otherwise Trisquel appears to be every bit as functional as other mainstream Linux distributions. The software Trisquel ships with appears to be stable, functional and user friendly. The distribution is easy to install, I found it pleasant to use and I didn't encounter any problems. People who value or wish to promote free software should definitely try running Trisquel, it's an excellent example of what can be accomplished with free software." Jim Lynch of Desktop Linux Reviews reviewed the 5.5 release, Brigantia, and described it as "well-ordered and well developed" and recommended it to users whether they care about only using free software or not. Lynch stated that the release was suitable for beginners and advanced users. Chris Fisher and Matt Hartley of The Linux Action Show! praised the design, ease of use, and hardware support of Trisquel 5.5 and Trisquel 5.5 Mini, but found that the

Linux-libre According to the Free_Software_Foundation_Latin_America , Free Software Foundation Latin America, Linux-libre is a modified version of the Linux kernel that contains no binary blobs, Obfuscation (software), obfuscated code, or code released u ...

kernel found in Trisquel impedes functionality of proprietary wireless devices. They argued that the distribution was targeting power users and that new users should use a different distribution.

has mentioned that he is using Trisquel on a Thinkpad X200 with Libreboot as of 2022, and has previously used the Lemote Yeeloong.

Hardware

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ''i386'') is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the i386, 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarn ...

and

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

CPU architectures were supported since Trisquel 5.5, which includes free software compatible

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...

s. However, IA-32 support was dropped with the release of Trisquel 10. Support for 32-bit ARM processors with a floating point unit ( armhf) was added in the same release. 64-bit ARM and POWER support was added in Trisquel 11.0.

References

External links

* * {{Linux distributions 2007 software Free software only Linux distributions Linux distributions Spanish-language Linux distributions Ubuntu derivatives Linux distributions offering KDE desktop environment