My Story about Trisquel 8

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Zen_Floater2
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Joined: 03/24/2019

I recently purchased a Penguin J2 laptop 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SDD, I7 processor from Think Penguin.

Think Penguin is a who pushes Trisquel and Parabola Linux across a wide variety of liberated systems with open peripherals which do not require closed source 'blob' drivers.

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-j2-gnulinux-laptop

This paragraph was put right on the J2's spec page for everyone to read. They were not going to be able to support the Penguin J2 with Trisquel 8,,, or so they said...

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""""" Debian 10 (Buster), Ubuntu 18.04, OpenSUSE 15, Fedora 28, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, CentOS 8, Linux Mint 19, other distributions based off a recent software stack are supported out of the box. Contact support for more information on your preferred distribution and release.

Trisquel in a future release (Trisquel 9) will be supported and Parabola GNU/Linux-libre is supported currently also. """"""""""""""

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But, Trisquel 8 is such a robust, well maintained, nurtured system that they eventually provided the appropriate backported kernel to allow this laptop to have Trisquel 8 installed, and I ordered it as such, and I"m using Trisquel 8 on this ultra modern laptop!!!! Trisquel 8 is based in ubuntu 16.04 but is a GROWING - EVOLVING system.

Trisquel runs their operating system differently than Ubuntu does with the LTS releases. Trisquel is enhanced.

Think Penguin probably used QEMU to install this version of Trisquel on this laptop to get it running. no kidding.
And the rewards are an incredibly fast laptop as this Trisquel 8 base is much quicker than 18.04 or current.
The software in this distribution is usable and adequate - after all,, more current repos really don't offer that much more NEEDED functionality... And I can always just add a PPA for any particular package I simply MUST have the most current version.

Everything in this distribution is unencumbered {FREE} software. Not OPENSOURCE but {{{{FREE}}}}} software...

I also run OpenBSD and FuguIta OS. Regrettably, both their UEFI equipped install file systems also can not run the video system in this new laptop.

You can order your own Penguin J2 and get Trisquel 8 installed on it and it's just breathtaking...
It's breathtaking in speed and power.... Trisquel 8 is so carefully maintained and groomed - compared to say ubuntu 19.10. I really feel at home here like I was back on Slackware. Just solid, stable power...

Thanks Trisquel team..

Charlie

commodore256
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Joined: 01/10/2013

I would imagine Trisquel would be no more stable than Debian, I'm using Devuan and it's an ok experience on my machine. The computer I'm currently using is a Dell Optiplex, it's trash. I bought it with the mentality that Dell is the closest thing we have to IBM because like them they use Delta PSUs and the rugged laptops Dell makes are pretty good. But the Optiplexes are bottom of the barrel buggy machines targeting excel users. The machine crashes at times when you run something 3D.

Anyway, I'm sure Tinkpenguin deals with better OEMs that optimize for a more general experience. The Optiplex engineers are like "Meh, our users aren't going to consistently keep the GPU at 100%"

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

Indeed, Debian is stabler than Trisquel, because latter is based on a broken-beyond-repair distribution named Ubuntu (and to make things worse, it's based on the LTS version).

And it is also true that Debian unstable is in fact stabler than Debian testing. Bugs are fixed very quickly in Debian sid. For example, I encountered two bugs recently. One was that Filezilla didn't startup due to certain bug in "libfilezilla0" package; the other was a bug that caused the system (desktop) to startup and shutdown very slowly. Both bugs were fixed within a couple of weeks (for Debian sid). So I temporarily switched from testing to sid to fix those bugs.

(According to my experience) Stability: unstable (sid) > testing > stable > Ubuntu > Ubuntu LTS

chaosmonk

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Joined: 07/07/2017

Indeed, Debian is stabler than Trisquel, because latter is based on a broken-beyond-repair distribution named Ubuntu (and to make things worse, it's based on the LTS version).

"Stable" doesn't mean no bugs. It means no surprises. Installing updates from a stable repository should generally only fix existing bugs, not introduce new ones, whereas installing updates from an unstable repository should on average introduce about as many bugs as it fixes. Done right, a stable distribution *should* therefore have fewer bugs than an unstable distribution, but as you're clearly aware, Ubuntu is not exactly "done right".

SuperTramp83

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Joined: 10/31/2014

>broken-beyond-repair distribution named Ubuntu

hehe, my cheers go to you, friend :)

*And what's with that "your system has experienced a crush, click herre to send ur info to craponical" I see each time I installed it for someone, and that's like a dozen or more times, each time? X)

How difficult it is to respin something as perffect as debian, really? but no.. let us add crap, like, let us not forget, their infamous spyware in the (un)wise form of dashboard? :)

What purpose does Ubuntu have really, assuming, as it is really is the case truth be told, Debian in its current state and form could not be easier to use?

Magic Banana

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For example, I encountered two bugs recently. One was that Filezilla didn't startup due to certain bug in "libfilezilla0" package; the other was a bug that caused the system (desktop) to startup and shutdown very slowly.

And yet you claim Debian testing is more stable than Debian stable or Ubuntu LTS? You must have a weird definition of "stable".

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

In my context, "stability" can be (to some extent) interpreted as how quickly bugs can be fixed, so I don't have to take much efforts to find workarounds and keep using the current operating system installation for routine works.

I'm not an expert on GNU/Linux, so I often re-install GNU/Linux when I feel I have to. When I switched from Ubuntu/Mint to Debian testing/sid, I found that most problems can be resolved by periodically updating the system (i.e. they get fixed very quickly). The result was that I needed to re-install Debian testing/sid far less frequently than Ubuntu/Mint, and in other words, Debian testing/sid is "stabler" on my hard disk, as it is less likely to force me to re-install it.

Magic Banana

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OK. But as chaosmonk explained, that is not what is usually called "stability".

With a stable distribution, you may have to find a few workarounds after an update to a newer version of the distribution, but your are then fine for years. And you are given months if not years to plan the update: you can test it on another machine, already find the workarounds there, switch to the new version when you have no urgent work to do, etc.

With an unstable distribution, you are constantly facing new problems. Sure, you can ignore them until an update fixes them. Maybe weeks later. Maybe more. If you are using the system to do actual work, that is usually unacceptable.

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

Then, what about basing future Trisquel on Debian stable? Many Ubuntu-based distributions are considering this.

Magic Banana

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Trisquel used to be based on Debian. gNewSense is, now. I am personally OK with either choice: Ubuntu is not a bad base. The version of the packages with "ubuntu" in the version are improvements over Debian's and, as far as I understood, it is not harder to base an FSDG-compliant distribution on Ubuntu, rather than Debian.