Using Trisquel 100% of the Time

Trisquel does work very well thanks in large part to the lead developer Rubén. Unfortunately many of us still have issues due the dominance of non-free business models. Making a usable free distribution becomes difficult as a result.

There are lots of things that need to be worked on in the free software movement. Many of these things are beyond Rubén's direct control. Fortunately there are others out there. Check out the fsf for instance.

Rubén's playing an important part in making it possible to use a mostly free system (Trisquel is 100% free although there are still parts which are non-free in your computer unrelated to your operating system).

The community has set a goal (missed, but we are still working on it anyway) of getting 100 members by the end of January 2012(?). This effort is helping to fund the project.

Right now the project does not make enough to fund a developer full time. Rubén has been working hard on Trisquel for many years and it would be nice if we could raise enough money for him to dedicate his full attention to the project.

If you are able become a member! You don't have to contribute much if you aren't able.

https://trisquel.info/en/member

There are other ways to help fund the project. Besides working to improve support for free and truly free operating systems like Trisquel (most of all) my company is donating 25% of the profits when you purchase hardware through http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/. We also donate to other free projects like the free software foundation amongst others depending on where you get it from. All purchases help in a number of ways though. We are focused on end-users and improving support for free software wherever that leads us. Such as getting the source code to firmware released where there are no alternatives. Our entire catalog is free software compatible. We specifically make sure Trisquel is well supported.

You can also donate a lump sum too although as a member you will probably end up donating more over time. It also won't be as much of a burden.

There are other projects which need your help that Trisquel relies on. The drivers/firmware that we are working to get the code for is one good example.

Spreading the message that non-free drivers/firmware are problematic is something everybody agrees on. Both the guys distributing non-free distributions and free distributions. You could help by recommending solutions to this problem on other forums. Non-free distributions included. That is those having problems with wireless cards like: braodcom, intel, ralink, realtek, etc or Nvidia/ATI. It is really simple to fix. Replace the card (where possible) and/or don't buy further hardware dependent on non-free drivers/firmware. Users have to demand freedom friendly hardware if things are going to improve.

I have used Trisquel for almost all my x86 computing for a little over 6 months. That is my usual web, email, office documents, light DTP, web site editing, photo editing, some programming and a bit of hobby graphics. The only thing I've been unable to use it for is updating my mobile phone's firmware, which is dependent on proprietary W$ software . That's shortly to get overwritten as the phone has had a month since last upgrade and hasn't had a forget everything crash.

The main issue I've had was with nVidia dual head support and moving to a more recent kernel from jxself fixed the worst of that. Things seem much better in the week or so I've been using Brigantia beta w/ Linux-libre 3.2.11.

A secondary issue was the [licensed] British radio has standardised on a single Flash platform for streaming so I had to move to using a radio for live broadcasts and get-iplayer for recorded BBC TV and radio. A bit of command line never did anyone any harm :-)

I'm all in with Trisquel since 4.5 came out. I also tried gNewSense of the free distros but since the release was so much older I preferred Trisquel. I guess I should give the other distros a spin as well I guess, if only just to see them.

This oldish HP Pavilion dv5000 is my first laptop and I got lucky since my wifi worked without me doing anything from day one. As a user of an oldish Radeon I had to add the nomodeset kernel parameter to be able to suspend and hibernate. And no 3d effects.

I really like the feeling of being in control of the hardware I own. And sharing knowledge and well-being with other people. Summa summarum, I'm very happy.

I have installed Trisquel 5.0 in vitualbox 4.1.10 on imac 24 early 2007 ( core duo duo) with Lion 10.7.3 primary system. I want know if my hardware ( for example airport wi-fi,isight webcam) are compatibility for uses in Trisquel and my sound card firewire maudio firewire solo is recognized in Trisquel 5.0 in case you want to install the operating system natively on a partition of mac.
Hi

gennaro

Trisquel only on 3 computers (2 desktop; 1 netbook) for all personal and work computing. My desktop machines are Ubuntu certified and I had no issues installing Trisquel. I needed to buy a cheap ($8) USB WiFi adaptor for the netbook to stay free. My wife has a Mac that I borrow on the rare occasion when I need to translate an old file from a proprietary format to something I can use in Trisquel. I feel the need to take a shower after using the Mac. :)

I get to hear my first RMS talk tomorrow in NYC. Looking forward to that.

libredrs

I'm on Trisquel since november...
I have also installed Ubuntu 11.10 because sometimes I have to use something wich use flash and doesn't run with gnash. But I'm also interested about the news from Ubuntu so I still use it, but only 5% of time.
My hardware run properly with Trisquel, only 3D isn't available, but I'm near to buy a new laptop and it will be Trisquel compatible.
I had some troubles with unrar, but now it's ok...
A very nice experience use Trisquel!

I have mostly used Trisquel mostly inside a KVM-based virtual machine. So I am not shure if my experiences really count but there you go:

Unfortunately on my hardware (GeForce 9800GT) 3D acceleration is cumbersome. This is not really a problem of Trisquel itself but the old version of the Noveau driver included with the older Ubuntu versions on which Trisquel is based. I have seen my graphic adapter perform much better at an acceptable level with the latest Knoppix (6.7 ?) using a newer version of Noveau. Those of you with NVidia cards will experience big issues with Noveau when you try to play games (e.g. Alien Arena, Xonotic, Open Arena).

For general use (E-Mail, surfing the web, watch Youtube, writting some text) I think Trisquel and the alikes are perfectly fine. Thanks to the Trisquel team for that. I will definitely consider using Trisquel instead of Ubuntu the next time I set up a PC for friends or relatives.

Even the free alternatives to watch Youtube and other flashbased video sites are acceptable. This is great.

Most PCs nowadays are overkill for most average users anyway. Personally I think as much as Trisquel succeed in freeing the user in one aspect, it massively fails in other aspects and a more wider focus. It is important that the reasons for this are not directly related to Trisquel itself but the way current hardware is build.

By excluding non-free firmware files, which is perfectly fine from the perspective of free software, any free Linux distribution out there put the average user in a position which I find questionable in regard to the general freedom of the user and in regard to other aspects. I will try to elabourate with my hardware and usage profile as examples:

Not fully working 3D for gaming on NVidia cards:
All my system sport NVidia cards (GeForce 9500GT / 9800GT). I like to play a FPS now and then (Alien Arena, Xonotic, UT99, Darkplaces with different mods) and the more recent versions of Noveau are nearly perfectly capable of providing me the functionality I want. Unfortunately the version of Noveau shipped with Ubuntu are rather old and provide a bad experience. This is not really the fault of Trisquel but may be providing a newer version of Noveau in the Trisquel repo compared to the corresponding Ubuntu version will help. This requires man power of course.
Here is where rolling release distributions such as Parabola really shine. You get the latest working drivers in a rather short timeframe.

No working video acceleration (VAAPI / VDPAU):
As far as I am aware neither the free AMD/ATI nor NVidia drivers provide reasonable video acceleration similar to the propritary GPU drivers. This means that you either need to have a beefy CPU (at least faster than my AMD X2 with 2x2.7 GHz) in order to watch 1080p material encoded in h264 or you relly on external devices (e.g. hardware player attached to your TV).

Issues with mostly external devices relying on non-free firmware:
This is by far the biggest issue I personally have with each distribution excluding non-free firmware files. A lot of my devices rely on firmware files such as the NIC on my motherboard, my Hauppauge PVR150 (PCI), my DVB-T receivers (USB) or simply my Agfa e20 scanner (USB). I could find "free" alternatives like using a USB NIC instead of the mainboard NIC, use an external DVB-X receiver instead the USB receiver but for me this is both not acceptable. A USB NIC does not make me more "free" than the internal NIC which relies on a blob. Free as free software yes but I would need both to waste personal ressources (money / time) to buy hardware most likely produced in a non-free country under bad conditions for the workers. Take your time to think about it !

Using an external DVB-S/C/T receiver as replacement for my current USB DVB-T box attached to my PC would again be a valid option from the puristic perspective of free software. Again it fails for me because of the same reasons as above: My personal freedom as user is much more restricted by a propritary box with propritary software on it than from a simple blob on my Linux box. I have much more control and flexibility with a device which integrates into my PC than I will have from a DVB-S HDD receiver. Also I would was personal ressources (money / time) to buy hardware most likely produced in a non-free country under bad conditions for the workers.

For some areas I think no valid hardware options without non-free firmware exist or at least they are not widely available and have a high pricepoint.

By supporting manufactures which provide a better free software experience (e.g. buying an Intel-based CPU with Intel-based GPU) you endanger the market in another way. Just imagine if we would have only Intel again providing PC-based hardware as several years ago when AMD couldn't compete performance-wise. Prices would explode again.

To sum it up:
Trisquel is a nice OS but under the current conditions limits the abilities of the user in some aspects. If you can deal with this limitations is up to you. I can and will not shell out another few hundered euros (fast quadcore CPU, DVB-C/S receiver) simply to be "free" but what I will do in the end is paying more attention when buying new hardware.

Personally I do understand the ideas / concerns of the free software movement very well but I also think that several descions produces problems in other areas. I think manufacturers should be embraced in the first place if their hardware runs on Linux. A firmware should be rather accepted in the first place and work on a free firmware alternative should follow instead of rejecting the use of the hardware by omiting firmware in the first place. Anyway, I am not trying to preach the pope here. Everyone is free to do what he wants.

I've just discovered Trisquel. I like the OS very much and plan to use it full time. It seems to have a much lower overhead than Ubuntu. Now I've got to make a small donation to the developer. I'd give more but I'm not working now. when things get better I'll donate more. The only issues I'm having are with the playback of videos but I willl fix that by installing html5 and learning more about gnash and the other player codecs instead of using unfree flash.