Today the Freespire development team is pleased to announce the release of Freespire 9.5. Freespire is our free and open source release of our commercial product Linspire. Freespire is free to use, redistribute and bundle with recycled or new hardware. Freespire 9.5 is our latest improvements to the Freespire 9 release. As always we aim to create the best desktop Linux distribution on the market and we strive to continue that excellence. While there have been many improvements under the hood one of the major changes you will notice is in the user interface. While yes, the desktop environment tjhat we use is GNOME many of our users and customers have told us that they want the more traditional user interface that is not so different from Windows 10 or Windows 11 and in this release we have delivered that. You have your classic "dock" as well as "start" menu. If you prefer the traditional GNOME 4 layout its easy to switch back.
We have also worked on security and reliability, We have worked out many of the bugs and other issues that had arisen with the 9.0 release. Some of the fixes we have made:
- Python 3 applications crash or refuse to start
- Graphics not displaying proper resolutions over HDMI connections
- Bluetooth headset microphones not working
- When using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge web apps not showing up in the menu
- Zoom call crashes when using Bluetooth audio devices
- Kernel 5.19.0-41
- OnlyOffice 7.3
- Etcher 1.8
- Firefox ESR 102
- Thunderbird 102
- Discover Software Store
- Muon Package Manager
- Flatpak
All security updates up to May 5, 2023. For a full list of packages included you can read that here
You can download the new ISO from here.
https://distro.ibiblio.org/blacklab/freespire/freespire-9-desktop-amd64.iso
https://distro.ibiblio.org/blacklab/freespire/freespire-9-desktop-amd64.md5
https://distro.ibiblio.org/blacklab/freespire/freespire-9-desktop-amd64.sha256
If you wish to support our work you can donate here
