new user to linux

First of all: welcome to Trisquel!

1) yes. I would say it's pretty user friendly (in the sense that you have graphical programs for almost everything) and you have the advantage of the four freedoms (see: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

3) Since it's based on Ubuntu, you can get a lot of information from their wiki. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ But you're welcome to ask here, use the Trisquel wiki, webpage and also the irc channel as well. :-)

Feel free to ask questions! :-)

libre = free as in freedom

i think trisquel is the most user friendly libre gnu/linux distro
that there is.

but make sure you buy or have the correct hardware
as some hardware requires non-free software to run.
if you are buying a computer or computer hardware i reccomend getting it from
thinkpenguin:
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com
as all hardware sold there works with libre software

you could also build a computer as its much cheaper but
as your a new user i would not suggest that yet.

but if you want to install trisquel on your current computer
a good way to test if it will is a live cd
which would let you run trisquel without installing it
so you could test out if it works or not.
theres a good chance it will work though
and if you dont know how to make a live cd
then the pepole on this form would be happy to help
you.

also if you discover a problem its not the end
of the world as you can often get replacement parts

the most common problem with hardware
is wifi so if you boot to trisquel from
the cd and your wifi dose not work
you will need one of these:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-g-usb-adapter

i reccomend getting that specific one as the other usb wifi cards
dont always work well with old computers(computers pre 2005)
is using a live cd which will boot trisquel from the cd and allow you
to try it out without installing it
also i reccomend getting the 2$ usb extension cable if your usb ports are close together

also just so you know fedora is not a compleatly libre distro
it includes non-libre software.

Enjoy trisquel!

Hello eljinete!
I find Trisquel to be a very user friendly GNU/Linux distro, and I'm no rocket scientist by any stretch of the imagination.
Plus there is excellent support here and in Trisquels IRC channel. Ask any question, and you will get an answer.
Enjoy!

Well I just finished installing the 64bit version on my old pentium 4, so far I have tried the web browser, the word processor and had to silence the audio bot, the audio was really cool during the install as I felt I was in some kind of NOC and some rocket were doing to launch, anyway the biggest thing I noticed was the OS is to slow so I'm going to try the mini 32 bit. Thanks everyone for there help

You need not do a fresh install of mini straight away. Try installing LXDE desktop. It is a light weight GUI used in Trisquel Mini, Lubuntu etc. You can install it from Add/Remove Applications. After installing, log out and click on the icon beside your name in the login window and choose LXDE.

Hello

So I have a question, I just tried the live CD full version on my laptop and as far as I can tell everything works, even the fn keys, even the webcam. Does this mean I should be ok to blow windows from my hard drive and install trisquel?
Also I tried to use the hwinfo command but was unable to run it, is this because I was on the live CD?

Thanks

1. Is trisquel an adequate OS for fist time users with no previous experience on linux? I have been reading a both but the book is based on fedora.
2. If trisquel is not an appropriate OS for first time users can I get some recommendations?
3. Are there books or resources besides this website that could help me?

Hi there! :-)

Being a gnu/linux newbie myself, I hope I can offer some help.
Trisquel's been pretty much my first non-windows OS, been using it for about 6 months now, and I would never go back. I've tried many other distros while using it, and I got to say, you came to the right place, for it doesn't really get much easier than Trisquel (with the exception of Ubuntu and Mint, perhaps, but Trisquel is Ubuntu-based, so there's hardly any significant difference).

Some tips for having an easier transition:
1) Windows forces you to downloads apps from sites and install them (exe files). You won't be typically doing it in Trisquel. You will be using either Add/Remove Applications (you'll find it in the main menu if you haven't already) at first, and will sooner or later move to Synaptic (at least I did :)) which feels a bit more complex at first but is a fantastic tool.

2) Console can be scary at first if you don't have any knowledge of CLI (Command-Line Interface) tools but it is a fun, powerful, and sort of "I feel more in charge of my own OS" tool. Thing that you may be doing from time to time (although you can use Software Updater in System Settings instead):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

The first one checks for updates in repositories (that's where the software sits, you just download it and save plenty of time in comparison to Windows).
The second one actually checks for updates of the already installed packages on your Trisquel. If you accept the upgrade, it will do everything for you.
Finally, two commands you will find useful that Software Updater won't do for you (afaik):

sudo apt-get autoremove

This will check if there are any dependencies (packages) on your Trisquel that are no longer needed and remove them.

sudo apt-get -f install

This you will be using less often (I hope :)) but it simply fixes the problem of broken dependencies for you. You'll often be asked to do it by the console anyway.

apt-get is a package installer for Ubuntu/Ubuntu-based systems.
sudo executes the command on root level (full permissions).

I remember I found those things confusing at first, so I hope they will be of some help to you.

3) You will find more in Synaptic than in Add/Remove Applications. And (worth remembering :)), remember, if you seek a piece of software, it is very, very likely that it's already in Trisquel repository and you can just fetch it with the aforementioned tools.

4) There's also one more way of installing software, and it's with apt-get:
sudo apt-get install
e.g.: sudo apt-get install inkscape

That's all I have to offer from the basics that I had to learnt. :-)
Remember, whatever you are seeking, it's pretty much Ubuntu you are using, so you will be able to find answers to most of your questions already on the web (Ubuntu's site features some pretty decent help that I've been using a lot).

Best of luck!!

To be familiar (and expert) with command-line of linux, Beginner is recommended to read/visit book: The Linux Command Line. Pdf version is also available!

Note:

“graphical user interfaces make easy tasks easy, while command line interfaces make difficult tasks possible”

As new user of linux also take look at Filesystem Directory_structure

And I think Trisquel (GNU/Linux) is perfect OS which is based on Ubuntu LTS with only free software (Best GNOME based Desktop environment and most of GNU/GNOME Applications) So, common technical wiki/tutorial for Debian/Ubuntu can also useful here.

You can show screen-shot of free distro @ GNU which recommends Trisquel

Following is helpful for Hardware support & free Software/Resource database:

1. Hardware Devices that Support GNU/Linux
2. The Free Software Directory
3. The Free Software Resources

hello

I'm looking into purchasing a refurbished laptop from a small local computer shop, is there any concerns with such a purposes besides trisquel gnu/linux not working I mean should I be concerned with embedded virus in hard drive or in the hardware or even the bios? If I could I would buy new but I rather buy something used and give it a new purpose but that just me

I'm glad to hear you are considering buying a pre-owned laptop, thereby keeping a few bits of toxic materials out of the waste stream. Also, you're repurposing perfectly-good hardware. Before installing any new operating system onto such a machine, I'd "shred" the drive. You can do this from any GNU/Linux live image, such as Trisquel 7. Boot the live medium, open a terminal, use the "lsblk" command to learn what device refers to the hard drive. That done, you can do
sudo shred /dev/sda

for instance, assuming the hard drive is /dev/sda.

You could also do something like

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

This would write 0 onto the entire disk, unless you stop before it finishes.

HTH,

Dave