Some weeks ago, Richard Stallman came to Barcelona and we had the occasion to ask him about what he thinks about Ubuntu and what are the distributions that he (and the fsf) recommends.

About Ubuntu, Stallman said to us that it is just a way to arrive to the free software, but it is not a real solution because Ubuntu includes a lot of privative software (towards the CD or the repositories).

So, that was the reason why next logical question was “which distributions do you recommend?”. Stallman told about UTUTO, MUSIX and the one in which development the FSF are actively involved: gNewSense. gNewSense is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu.

Two days ago we knew that there was published a new beta release for gNewSense 2.0. This new release is based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, the artwork has been changed, the default internet browser will be Epiphany and they removed some non-free GLX modules from X/mesa.

It must be clear that this is a distribution for a purist users. You have to think that even if this release is compatible with a lot of hardware, there are other hardware that will not be supported, so you will have to use some privative modules, so your system won’t be totally free… so maybe it’s better to use other distribution.

Of course the correct way is to buy hardware compatible with GNU/Linux. Anyway, if you want to try it, here are the links to download and the release announcement.

• Donwload | gNewSense 2.0 beta
• Link | Release announcement