dev blog : Introducing the Debian Libre Live Images – Simon Josefsson
calibrate your expectations! The primary audience are people already familiar with Debian.
blog post
Introducing the Debian Libre Live Images
Posted on 2025-11-13 by simon
The Debian Libre Live Images allows you to run and install Debian GNU/Linux without non-free software.
The general goal is to provide a way to use Debian without reliance on non-free software, to the extent possible within the Debian project.
One challenge are the official Debian live and installer images. Since the 2022 decision on non-free firmware, the official images for bookworm and trixie contains non-free software.
The Debian Libre Live Images project provides Live ISO images for Intel/AMD-compatible 64-bit x86 CPUs (amd64) built without any non-free software, suitable for running and installing Debian. The images are similar to the Debian Live Images distributed as Debian live images.
One advantage of Debian Libre Live Images is that you do not need to agree to the distribution terms and usage license agreements of the non-free blobs included in the official Debian images. The rights to your own hardware won’t be crippled by the legal restrictions that follows from relying on those non-free blobs. The usage of your own machine is no longer limited to what the non-free firmware license agreements allows you to do. This improve your software supply-chain situation, since you no longer need to consider their implication on your computing environment for your liberty, privacy or security. Inclusion of non-free firmware is a vehicle for xz-style attacks. For more information about the advantages of free software, see the FSF’s page on What is Free Software?.
Enough talking, show me the code! Err, binaries! Download images:
wget https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/74667529/packages/generic/debian-libre-live/main/live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso wget https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/74667529/packages/generic/debian-libre-live/main/live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso.SHA256SUMS sha256sum -c live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso.SHA256SUMSRun in a virtual machine:
kvm -cdrom live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso -m 8GBurn to an USB drive for installation on real hardware:
sudo dd if=live-images-amd64.hybrid.iso of=/dev/sdX # use sdX for USB driveImages are built using live-build from the Debian Live Team. Inspiration has been taken from Reproducible Live Images and Kali Live.
The images are built by GitLab CI/CD shared runners. The pipeline .gitlab-ci.yml container job creates a container with live-build installed, defined in container/Containerfile. The build job then invokes run.sh that includes a run to lb build, and then upload the image to the package registry.
This is a first initial public release, calibrate your expectations! The primary audience are people already familiar with Debian. There are known issues. I have performed successful installations on a couple of different machines including laptops like Lenovo X201, Framework AMD Laptop 13″ etc.
Are you able to install Debian without any non-free software on some hardware using these images?
Happy Hacking!
🐧🖥️ where to get it: https://libre.debian.net/ 🖥️🐧
Can I just say that I love the phrase “calibrate your expectations!”
My therapist likes to say “lower your expectations to zero”
Why is this ISO not signed with GPG by the Debian project? How can you have trust for an installer medium that isn’t signed with GPG?
Why is this ISO not signed with GPG by the Debian project?
Everything about this looks half baked. Like to the extent that I’d be convinced this was malware if I hadn’t spent a bunch of time poking around.
debian.net is a part of the debian project and its infrastructure, but it’s not where they usually host distro download pages. Pay no attention to the incorrect SSL cert on the root domain and lack of any discussion about libre debian before this guy posted his announcement.
lol this guy wrote DNS related RFCs and a bunch of cryptography related RFCs for IETF. You’d think he’d know better.
Good question. I couldn’t find an issue open, maybe you should make one https://gitlab.com/debdistutils/debian-libre/debian-libre-live/-/issues
