Simon Josefsson, a Debian developer, announced that the project now has a fully free alternative for users who want to run or install Debian 13 (Trixie) without any non-free components.
The new Debian Libre Live Images provide amd64 live and installer ISOs built entirely without proprietary firmware, addressing a long-standing gap created after Debian’s 2022 decision to include non-free firmware in its official images for the Bookworm and Trixie releases.
The target audience is users who prefer a system free of licensing restrictions and proprietary blobs while remaining close to the experience offered by the regular Debian Live Images. The goal of this initiative is to provide a Debian environment that does not require accepting the restrictive licenses associated with proprietary firmware.
As you can expect, removing these components avoids the limitations those licenses impose on how users may interact with their own hardware and eliminates the supply-chain risks associated with shipping opaque binary blobs.
According to devs, the images have already been tested on a range of hardware, and installations on several desktops and servers have also been reported. So far, so good, but my tests showed something completely different.
First, if you’re expecting these images to match the quality of the official Debian ones, you should adjust your expectations accordingly.
My installation resulted in no Debian repositories configured at all, so I had to add them manually before I could install anything. Additionally, the absence of non-free repositories means you’re left without support for modern hardware, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and video drivers, among others.
In other words, using them to set up a desktop system is pretty questionable. For server use, though, these images make more sense.
If you’re interested in testing the new builds (and feel adventurous), installing Debian without any non-free software, the Debian Libre Live Images are now available for download. For more details, read the announcement on Josefsson’s blog.
