Getting on the Free Software Foundation's page of acceptable Linux distros isn't the easiest task in the world. Stallman and Co. have very particular requirements about what can and can't be included. A first glance at the page might put you off -- there aren't any big name distros like Ubuntu, Suse, or Fedora.

Trisquel, however, is definitely worth a closer look. It's Ubuntu-based and ships with an excellent (and familiar) group of core apps - Firefox, Evolution, Pidgin, Transmission, OpenOffice, GIMP, Brasero, and several others - Elisa media center is even included. A liveUSB disk creator is also provided so you can easily roll your own portable Trisquel remaster. As per the FSF mandate, everything in the ISO is 100% free.

The distribution just reached version 3.0. A light version is also in the works and is set to drop in a few days. It will feature the XFCE desktop environment and lightweight apps like Epiphany, Sylpheed, and Abiword.

Even if you're not an adamant FOSS advocate, Trisquel is a solid Linux distribution and well worth taking for a test drive.

This weekend I finished setting up a fresh triple-boot install on my MSI laptop. With my operating systems ready to go, the time had come to start reinstalling applications. While it wasn't a conscious decision, I noticed that the majority of my apps were Open Source - so I decided to keep the ball rolling.

Even if you haven't just gone through a reformat, these are great applications and well worth installing. If you have, then hopefully this list will provide you with a solid base of programs to get you started with your fresh, new Windows install!

Web Browsers: Chromium, Firefox
They excel at different things, so I install both browsers by default. Chromium is great for all-purpose surfing, while I use Firefox and my favorite extensions to tackle my daily web-based work.

Office: OpenOffice.Org, Sumatra, PDFCreator
For lightweight PDF reading and creation from any Windows app, Sumatra and PDFCreator are solid options. OpenOffice.Org, well, it's the name to beat in open source suites.

We've covered many, many Explorer replacements here in the past, so I was a little surprised that MuCommander hadn't been written up yet.

What makes MuCommander stand out is that it is free, open source, and cross-platform. The author's web site provides downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux (.tar.gz) as well as a Debian package, portable version, and a Java Web Start package.

It's actually the first JWS application I've come across since I started reviewing for Download Squad. It loaded fairly quickly on my netbook, and ridiculously fast on my quad-core AMD desktop.

MuCommander presents a skinnable, dual-pane view for file management. There's no tab support, though I don't consider that a major shortcoming - especially considering its other features are numerous, and extremely useful.

For starters, there's built-in support for FTP, SFTP, Samba, HTTP, NFS, and Bonjour. Several types of archives can be explored without extracting: zip, rar, tar, gzip, bzip2, iso, nrg, deb, and lst. MuCommander can create archives (press ctrl+I to pack) and even modify zip files on the fly without having to recompress the entire archive

There's also a command shell window with scrolling output, credential manager, and favorite locations list.

MuCommander is a fantastic file manager, and well worth a test drive for any user - regardless of OS.

As we mentioned on Monday, the Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design campaign against DRM paid the U.K. a visit yesterday with protests outside the BBC's London and Manchester locations against the use of Microsoft DRM technology in their highly debated iPlayer software.

The BBC iPlayer has been in development for a number of years now, costing the BBC public £130 million (nearly $260 million) to date. The use of Microsoft's DRM technology has been highly contentious, especially with the appointment of Erik Huggers (previously director of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media division whose technology the BBC now employs in their iPlayer software) as controller of the BBC's future media and technology group which is managing the iPlayer project.

The BBC is a publicly funded body, governed by the BBC Trust who protect, amongst other things, open access and independence form corporate influence. The BBC has been told to make the player platform independent, however Mac and Linux users are likely to be out in the cold for some time.

Download Squad decided to visit the protest and spoke to Peter Brown, Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation, about the reasoning behind the protests and what the campaigns hopes for the future. We've made the interview available either as a text transcript after the break, or via the Download Squad podcast feed.

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Podcast Links

• BBC iPlayer homepage
• Defective by Design
• Free the BBC

In their ever-continuing quest against security flaws in Firefox, the Mozilla Corporation has just updated Firefox to the awkwardly numbered version 2.0.0.5. Eight flaws are fixed in this release - three of which are marked as critical. Those of you wanting to know exactly which vulnerabilities have been fixed might want to check out the Vulnerabilities page at the Mozilla homepage.

If you're already running Firefox 2.0.0.x, then the auto-update mechanism will inform you of the update "within 24-48 hours" and Mozilla folks are also reminding folks that they have ceased support for Firefox 1.5.0.x, stating "you are highly encouraged to upgrade to the Firefox 2 series". For those of us using specialised builds (such as the Intel or PowerPC Mac OS X-optimised Bon Echo versions), we'd hazard a guess that updated versions of those are also on their way in due course from the respective third parties who build them.

[Via]

Fortune Magazine has a detailed article examining Microsoft's relationship to free and open source software. Although the story reads mostly as a history of Microsoft, Linux, and GNU, there are a few interesting new tidbits, including the number of patents Microsoft claims Linux and other free software infringes on: 235.

Microsoft holds thousands of patents for its software, and won't say exactly which bits of code violate which patents. But apparently the Linux kernel alone violates 42 patents, while the Linux graphical user interface infringes on another 65. Microsoft says Open Office violates 45 patents.

Linux.com is running a great article Easy video creation using only FOSS software--FOSS, of course, meaning Free and Open Source. It's not a comprehensive tutorial--you're still going to have a lot of learning to do--but it does tell your best options for creating and editing video without spending a dime. The short version is like this:

• Cinelerra - Non-linear digital video editor and compositor
• Kino - FireWire DV video capture
• Xawdecode - analog (VHS and camcorder) video capture, DVB capture, streaming and TV/DVR functionality
• MEncoder - video conversion
• DeVeDe - MEncoder GUI for easy DVD and VCD creation
• MPlayer - DVD and video playback
• dvd::rip - for ripping DVD video
• Firefox with the Flash 9 plugin and VideoDownloader extension - for capturing video off the Web
• K3b - for burning DVD or VCD images

Since that's a lot of software to download and install, the article recommends Elive, a Debian-based Linux distribution that comes pre-built with Cinelerra, video drivers and codecs, and video and DVD playback apps. Head over to Linux.com for more details on gettting your open source video-editing rig up and running.

User groups, for all their pedantic and geeky reputation, are a source of tremendous power and motivation in some communities, and it seems the more remote the community, the more robust the local user group. The island nation of Trinidad and Tobago are no exception to this rule.

The TTCS OSS/Win CD is a user group produced and maintained disk of over 100 free and Open Source programs and utilities for the Windows platform. What separates the TTCS disk from a random collection of downloadable goodies is the web-based documentation and categorization of everything included on the burnable CD image.

The 700MB CD image includes desktop and educational applications, games, graphics programs, various server software, Internet programs and a host of sound and video applications. This is the kind of software collection that makes you (the geek) look like you (the superhero) when you burn and share it, evangelizing open source and helping less computing savvy friends and family find some really useful FOSS applications.

A full list of everything on the CD is available from the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society's website, as is the downloadable ISO image.