Review: Manjaro Linux 22.0, Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0
While using Trisquel, two reoccurring ideas kept coming to mind. The first was that Trisquel is not only one of the most user-friendly, polished libre distributions available, it feels like one of the more friendly and polished Linux distributions in general. Even with the main edition (as opposed to the Mini edition), the system is unusually light and fast. Trisquel finds a pretty good balance between providing useful applications for a wide range of tasks and not making the application menu crowded. The system looks fairly nice, in a classic way, and I find it easy to navigate.
Trisquel often manages to present pop-ups and update indicators in a way that draws attention without being annoying. Its installer is easy to set up and the settings panel is a breeze to navigate. One of my few issues was having the screen reader enabled by default. This is, of course, a good option for people who are visually impaired, but for someone who doesn't need the screen reader (and who hasn't used MATE before) it required digging down about four levels in the settings panel to find the toggle to turn off the reader. Even then, the reader re-enabled itself every time I logged in, despite it being clearly turned off in the settings panel and this is likely to frustrate anyone who has their speakers turned on.
So that was my main train of thought with regards to Trisquel - it's nice, fast, polished, and easy to use. However, the second thought was that it's a shame I'll probably never be able to use Trisquel as my daily operating system. It's unfortunate, but most devices these days need non-free firmware to access the Internet and are not much use without this key feature. I suppose the alternative would be to buy a USB wireless card which works with free firmware, but I've found those to be rare and they take up one of a limited number of USB ports available.
In brief, I think Trisquel is doing a great job presenting the world with what can be achieved by using free software only. However, using it also reminds me of the (sometimes harsh) limitations a free software only system imposes. People wanting wireless networking, video drivers for gaming, a 3-D desktop, or possibly access to other non-free items like some printer drivers, are out of luck with Trisquel. Likewise, anyone wanting to use a non-free browser or service like Steam will also need to venture outside their default repositories.
This is, of course, the point of Trisquel, being a beckon of free-only software. People who download Trisquel probably are not interested in non-free components (software or hardware). This distribution offers a narrower path to walk, but it is a very smooth, pretty path.