Trisquel 8.0 Arrives Of The 100% Libre Linux OS, Using MATE & Powered By Linux 4.4

Four years after the debut of Trisquel 7.0 and a year and a half since the 8.0 Alpha, Trisquel 8.0.0 is now available for this Linux distribution that's endorsed by the Free Software Foundation.

Along with gNewSense, PureOS, and a few others, Trisquel is among the few Linux distributions approved by the Free Software Foundation for meeting their free software requirements. Trisquel 8.0 continues this trend in being "100%" committed to free software.

Trisquel 8.0 is making use of the Linux-libre 4.4 LTS kernel (a real pity they didn't opt for Linux 4.14 LTS, also available in libre form..), switches from the GNOME 2 desktop to the MATE fork, and is making use of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for its base packages (again, unfortunate they didn't wait to re-base to 18.04 Bionic). The desktop environment shifted over to MATE as they wanted a Linux desktop not requiring OpenGL acceleration due to not wanting to require binary drivers or even binary GPU microcode files for that matter, ruling out 3D hardware acceleration for most newer GPUs.

Those interested in taking Trisquel 8.0 for a spin can find it for download here. Trisquel 8.0 is a long-term support release for the project and is codenamed "Flidas."