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Those people are super shy about what their system is based on, which packages are available, and what is unique to Trisquel.

From what I could find out, it seems to be another Ubuntu-based system, but with all non-free parts disabled. Is there anything more to it?

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That's what almost every project advertising it is free of non-free stuff is: some other project with the non-free parts removed, nothing more. Trisquel (Ubuntu), linux-libre (linux), libreboot (coreboot), etc. When your sole selling point is lack of non-free stuff, there is no need to invest time adding anything else.

E.g. linux-libre is just a big script that removes the nonfree parts and firmware support; they just run it against every kernel release with minor tweaks and that's their new release. libreboot is similar.

What about osboot, the new project by the libreboot author?

osboot is much more pragmatic, since it doesn't try to be 100% free of blobs but rather chooses platform support over that. AIUI it is partially a response to just how utterly useless libreboot had become (it can't support any recent platform).

Debian/Ubuntu seems the default, but projects could be more clear. Package management is my first question.

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