Last week (on 12/08/17) we reinstated the Freedom Fridays, a tradition in which we hold periodic development meetings and post updates about the project at the end of each week. These updates were long overdue but since we can now consistently dedicate more time to the project, we hope to make fast progress on all fronts.

The main topic for this meeting was the status of the Trisquel 8 release, which is close to ready but still pending some important tasks. The most visible ones are the outdated Trisquel metapackages (essential for the netinstall and distro-upgrading processes to work) and the new artwork (current ISOs use placeholder art).

Ruben will work on providing soon newer ISO images with updated metapackages, and there's something that almost anybody can do to help speeding up the release: testing the upgrade procedure from Trisquel 7 to Trisquel 8. Jxself has provided an easy-to-replicate set of steps using virtualization to perform this test without complications.

There are also several package helpers in need of updating, like those listed by kpengboy here, even though some of them are not critical for release. Some other bugs are already being worked into at our gitlab instance by several community members which surely can use help from other experienced users.

After Trisquel 8 is ready we plan to start working soon in the next release, but revamping the build/development workflow is currently the second highest priority since we want to be able to make it easier and more straightforward to collaborate.

In the second half of the meeting we also talked about the plan to migrate our websites to an updated platform, where we'll adopt easier to maintain solutions for elements like forums and mailing lists. Moving to mailman 3 and its complete web interface will be simpler than the current solution and will also help us fix one of the more common grievances with the current solution: the unintended visibility of e-mail addresses at the forum.

We'll start working on the new site at the very generously donated domain trisquel.org (thanks, Salman!) as soon as we set up an updated environment. We'll use the second half of the development meetings and the trisquel-devel mailing list for updates and coordination of pending tasks.

For the following meetings we already have lots of items to discuss, and we'll try to send an agenda to the trisquel-devel mailing list with enough anticipation, making it easier for everybody to participate. Meeting schedule is not set in stone; we settled on Fridays at 11:00 am EST / 8:00 am PST / 16:00 UTC after some deliberation but we can review those times later.

We hope to see even greater participation on future meetings and we'll be happy to post new updates soon as development progresses. Thanks everyone for the patience and happy hacking!

Just as we release Trisquel 8.0, the development of the next version begins! Following the naming suggestions thread I've picked Etiona, which sounds good and has the fewest search results.

We currently do our development in a rented dedicated server in France, and although it is functional it has many performance and setup issues. It has 32 gigs of RAM, which may sound like plenty but stays below the sweet spot where you can create big enough ramdisks to compile large packages without having to ever write to disk during the build process, greatly improving performance. It also has only 8 cores and rather slow disks. The good news is that the FSF has generously decided to host a much larger dedicated build server for us, which will allow us to scale up operations. The new machine will have fast replicated disks, lots of RAM and two 12 core CPUs.

Along with renewing the hardware, we need to revamp the software build infrastructure. Currently the development server runs a GitLab instance, Jenkins and pbuilder-based build jails. This combination was a big improvement from the custom made scripts of early releases, but it has some downsides that have been removed by sbuild. Sbuild is lighter and faster and has better crash recovery and reporting.

I will investigate whether we still need Jenkins or we can replace it with GitLab's CI modules, which should make for better integration. On top of that, sbuild makes it easier to do cross-compilation for ARM and other architectures. This bigger server will also have more capacity to host services like packages.trisquel.info, which is currently in need of a revamp.

Work on the build infrastructure should be done with the target of facilitating volunteer contributions. As it stands now, merge requests require my review and approval, which has proven to be a bottleneck. A system that allows volunteers to approve each other would speed up development and grow our community. The planned improvements to the CI setup would allow for contributors to easily run build tests on the development server.

We write today wishing you all a happy GNU year and to announce a great milestone for the Trisquel GNU/Linux project.

A couple of months ago, we were honored as one of the recipients of the Handshake Free and Open Source Software Community Grant, an amazing initiative of the Handshake Project which means that the Trisquel Association received an USD 100.000 donation.

These funds come from the contributions received by the Handshake project from their sponsors, which were pledged to be distributed among Free and Open Source Software projects and come with no strings attached. For those who are new to the Handshake project, you can read more here about this amazing alternative to the role of Certificate Authorities in the DNS protocol which makes the root zone (and hence the whole system) uncensorable, permisionless and free of gatekeepers.

We've decided to begin to use these funds along with those from the many and very generous donations of our community to provide a couple of paid positions to long-time members of the project: its founder and main developer Ruben Rodriguez and the websites and community lead David Rodriguez.

The details of time dedication and salary are not yet finalized but will be published here once we start with this new phase. Providing these paid positions will allow us to focus more consistently on the tasks that we've been working on through all these years, get up-to-speed with other long-neglected ones and also to realistically take on loftier goals.

We'll inform here about any advances to this plan and we'll make sure to take accountability seriously and give more frequent status updates, both through this blog and at the Freedom Fridays IRC meetings.

Here's to a wonderful 2019 full of advances and new milestones!

They say that good things come to those who wait, and for this release there has been a lot of waiting but also plenty of good things. Trisquel 9.0, codename "Etiona" is our most polished release yet, thanks to the contribution of a very committed team of volunteers. This release comes in several flavors:

• MATE desktop, the default. Based on the popular fork of GNOME 2.x, this edition provides a classic desktop environment matching the user experience of previous Trisquel releases.
• Trisquel Mini, a lightweight version for older machines and netbooks. Based on the LXDE desktop environment and a selection of resource-saving applications to bring new life to your hardware.
• Triskel, running the KDE environment. Excellent for customizing the design and look in fine detail.
• Trisquel netinstall image. To deploy with a command-line install interface, ideal for servers and advanced users.
• Trisquel TOAST, based on the Sugar learning platform. Comes with dozens of educational activities for children.

Despite the longer than usual release time, all packages are fully up to date with long-term-support updates and security patches. The default web browser "Abrowser", our freedom and privacy respecting take on Mozilla's browser, provides the latest updates from upstream for a great browsing experience. Backports provide extended hardware support and other goodies like a newer LibreOffice and many other utilities.

Special thanks (in no particular order, and probably forgetting a few!) to adfeno, Ark74, leny2010, chaosmonk, davidpgil, dctrud, daroal, proninyaroslav, sudoman, a_slacker_here, rms, bill-auger, pabloyoyoista, kpengboy, pikurasa, mtsio, bandali, thomzane, jxself, valessio, DiivaaD, DNS, Eighth_Doctor, iank, fredd, freekurt, aklis, gnutastyc, calher, CharlieBrown, satellit, charh, fvnines, pehjota, and the whole Trisquel community, for your contributions, support, ideas and continuous encouragement.

Give Trisquel 10 a name

The development work for the next release is ready to start, and the first step start building packages is to set a codename. Join the forum/mailing-list to bring suggestions for an inspiring name from the celtic mythology (as is tradition).

New development server

Thanks to the Free Software Foundation, we now have a dedicated development server built on freedom-respecting hardware, ready to start working on Trisquel 10. A beefy 32-core, 128GB RAM machine built on the KGPE-D16 motherboard running Libreboot, hosted at the FSF's datacenter rack in Somerville.
 

Images are available at https://trisquel.info/download or directly at https://cdimage.trisquel.info/ and its mirrors.

This minor update to the 9.x "Etiona" series is intended to provide an up to date set of ISO images, both for use as an installation medium and as a live environment with newer packages. This addresses two main security concerns in the 9.0 original ISO images:

•  An outdated Certificate Authority collection (package ca-certificates) included an expired root certificate for LetsEncrypt, resulting in blocked access to repositories for new packages or updates. https://letsencrypt.org/docs/dst-root-ca-x3-expiration-september-2021/
•  Overlooked binary blobs were found in versions of Linux-Libre prior to v5.14. Updated packages were added to the Trisquel repositores to correct the issue, and new ISO images were produced to include the fix. http://www.fsfla.org/pipermail/linux-libre/2021-August/003439.html

Along with those fixes, the release includes any other security update published upstream since we published Etiona, and the latest version of the Mozilla-based "Abrowser" (v93).

These updates will contribute to keep the v9.0 branch in good working order as it will continue to be actively maintained until April 2023.

In other news, the development of Trisquel 10 is ongoing at great pace, with initial ISO images being now available for testing at https://cdbuilds.trisquel.org/nabia/ Please note that these images are not yet   intended for production usage, so use them only for testing and development or (as it is true in any case) at your own risk.

Trisquel 10.0, codename "Nabia" is finally here! This release will be supported with security updates until April 2025. Additionally, an upgrade to the "Etiona" release (v9.0.2) is also being published today, providing updates and corrections to the installation ISO images.

These news are the culmination of months of work towards fixing, cleaning, and reviewing hundreds of packages and tickets with close feedback from the community at large. This work was boosted by an overhaul of the development infrastructure for a distribution that is  easier to maintain, more robust, and more welcoming to volunteers.

Many editions and flavors

• Trisquel: We continue to use MATE (version 1.24 this time) as the default desktop environment due to its great accessibility support, simple user interface and no dependency on 3D acceleration.
• Triskel: Our KDE (v5.68) based edition was given lots of attention for this release and it is now as polished as the MATE counterpart. This edition is excellent for customizing the design and functionality in fine detail.
• Trisquel Mini: Running LXDE (v0.99.2), the Mini edition is a lightweight desktop perfect for netbooks, old computers and users with minimal resource usage needs.
• Trisquel Sugar or Trisquel On A Sugar Toast (TOAST): Based on the Sugar learning platform (v0.118), TOAST comes with dozens of educational activities for children.
• Network installer image: To deploy with a command-line install interface, it is ideal for servers and advanced users who want to explore custom designed environments.

Some common core packages include:

• GNU Linux-libre 5.4 by default, 5.8 and 5.13 available
• Abrowser (rebranded, privacy oriented Firefox derivative) 96.0
• Icedove (rebranded, privacy oriented Thunderbird derivative) 91.5.0
• LibreOffice 7.1.7
• VLC video player 3.0.9.2
• Xorg 7.7
• GNU Libc6 2.31

Architecture changes

We are happy to announce the addition of support for ARM devices, incorporating armhf as a newly supported architecture for Nabia. The changes done to the development system to achieve this will make it much easier to expand to other architectures soon, targeting 64-bit ARM and PowerPC next. Although there isn't yet support for any specific board, today's publication of a pre-installed development image will allow the community to start experimenting and bring support to ARM devices. Nabia will be the first release to not have support for 32-bit hardware on x86, while Trisquel 9.0.2 Etiona will continue to provide support for x86 32-bit machines until April 2023.

Upcoming changes

Our main website will soon undergo a deep refresh, and as we continue to move to the trisquel.org domain it will be the perfect opportunity to migrate our bug tracker to our GitLab instance where all development will continue. Speaking of development, work on Trisquel 11 is set to start right away, so we invite the community to jumpstart the project with the suggestions of a codename, as is tradition. Join the forum/mailing lists to get involved.

With the continuous support form our community and contributors we will keep providing one of the best fully free operating systems, and tackle the big technical challenges ahead. Trisquel is a non-profit project, you can help sustain it by becoming a member, donating or buying from our store.

A big thank you for all the donors that keep the project going, and to the hackers adfeno, aklis, a_slacker_here, bandali, bill-auger, calher, chaosmonk, charh, CharlieBrown, daroal, davidpgil, dctrud, DiivaaD, DNS, Eighth_Doctor, fredd, freekurt, fvnines, gnutastyc, iank, joshaspinall, jxself, kpengboy, legimet, leny2010, mtsio, pabloyoyoista, pehjota, pikurasa, proninyaroslav, rms, satellit, sudoman, thomzane, valessio and specially Luis "Ark74" Guzmán, for all the code, patches, bug reports, translations and advice.

• 2.0 "Robur" Screenshots
• 3.0 "Dwyn" Screenshots
• 3.5 "Awen" Screenshots
• 4.0 "Taranis" Screenshots
• 5.5 "Brigantia" Screenshots
• 7.0 "Belenos" Screenshots
• 8.0 "Flidas" Screenshots
• 9.0 "Etiona" Screenshots

Today we publish a new set of live and installation media for the 10.0 series, that applies all package upgrades and security fixes to date, and corrects bugs in the installer applications and package managers. If you are already using Trisquel 10 you can upgrade without reinstalling, simply by using your package manager or update application of choice, or by running these two commands on a terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

The new release iso images are available in the downloads page.

Our most ambitious release to date, Trisquel 11.0 Aramo is out! After extensive work and thorough testing, we are proud to declare Aramo to be production-ready. This release brings many improvements and covers more grounds both in terms of machines supported and in installation options. Here are some highlights of the main accomplishments included in this release:

Major achievements

• New supported architectures. Following the addition of 32bit ARM support in Trisquel 10, we now introduce support for 64bit ARM and POWER architectures, to expand the options for hardware compatibility.
• d-i/Netinstall (also called "debian-installer") is the text-mode installer for Trisquel, which allows for advanced and custom installations, often used for servers. After Ubuntu dropped support for this installation method, we stepped in to add any removed pieces and make it functional again, often from upstream Debian sources.
• Browser packaging: as Ubuntu continues to shift towards snap packaging, we took on the task of continuing to package key components such as Abrowser (our improved Firefox derivative) as a standard .deb package. Abrowser continues to bring a fully free browser that balances privacy and usability.
• Compatibility with AMD/ATI graphics cards. We made a specific effort to improve the support for these cards without requiring non-free firmware blobs. The result is a default configuration that should make most of these types of cards work at a basic level, without 2D/3D acceleration. Please report if you test it with one of those cards!

Aramo is based on Ubuntu 22.04LTS and will receive support until 2027. Users of Trisquel 10 Nabia can upgrade directly using the update-manager or do-release-upgrade commands at a console terminal.

Editions

• Trisquel. We keep MATE (version 1.26 on this release) as the default desktop environment due to its great accessibility support, simple user interface and no dependency on 3D acceleration.
• Triskel. Our KDE (v5.92) based edition now as mature as our MATE release is excellent for customizing the design and functionality in fine detail.
• Trisquel Mini. Running LXDE (v0.99.2), the Mini edition is a lightweight desktop perfect for netbooks, old computers and users with minimal resource usage needs.
• Trisquel Sugar or Trisquel On A Sugar Toast (TOAST): Based on the Sugar learning platform (v0.119), TOAST comes with dozens of educational activities for children.
• Network installer image: To deploy with a command-line install interface, it is ideal for servers and advanced users who want to explore custom designed environments. GNOME users will be happy to find that Trisquel GNOME environment has been added to the tasksel step on the d-i installer.

In addition, this release had put some additional work on Budgie and Kylin alternative desktop environments for users that would like them to test them out, help us with some feedback.

Upcoming changes

During Aramo's lifespan we'll continue to improve installation support for ARM and POWERPC whose base rootfs are available at our cdimage archive.

With the continuous support form our community and contributors we will keep providing one of the best fully free operating systems, and tackle the big technical challenges ahead. Trisquel is a non-profit project, you can help sustain it by becoming a member, donating or buying from our store.

We can't finish this great release without thanking for all the donors that keep the project going, and to the hackers Amin Bandali, bill-auger, David L, David Philipe Gil, Denis "GNUtoo" Carikli, "dragestil", Francis Meetze, Jason Self, Joshua Aspinall , Keno Goertz, "knife", "Lappi", Legimet, Mason Hock, Pablo Correa, "Parodper", Simon Josefsson, and many others for all the code, patches, bug reports, translations, and advice. Special thanks to Luis "Ark74" Guzmán, for his very prolific contributions, and to the wonderful community that keeps the project going.

• 2.0 "Robur" Screenshots
• 3.0 "Dwyn" Screenshots
• 3.5 "Awen" Screenshots
• 4.0 "Taranis" Screenshots
• 5.5 "Brigantia" Screenshots
• 7.0 "Belenos" Screenshots
• 8.0 "Flidas" Screenshots
• 9.0 "Etiona" Screenshots
• 10.0 "Nabia" Screenshots