Software:List of GNU packages

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A number of notable software packages were developed for, or are maintained by, the Free Software Foundation as part of the GNU Project.

What it means to be a GNU package

Summarising the situation in 2013, Richard Stallman identified nine aspects which generally apply to being a GNU package,[1] but he noted that exceptions and flexibility are possible when there are good reasons:[2]

  1. The package should say that it is a GNU package.
  2. It should be distributed via ftp.gnu.org, or another site offering access to everyone.
  3. The package's homepage should be on the GNU website.
  4. The developers must pay attention to making their software work well with other GNU packages.
  5. Documentation should be in Texinfo format, or in a format easily convertible to Texinfo.
  6. Should use GNU Guile for its extension language, but exceptions are explicitly possible in this regard.
  7. Should not recommend any non-free program, nor refer the user to any non-free documentation or non-free software.
  8. Use GNU terminology, including referring to GNU/Linux systems and free software in situations where other observers would write Linux and open source.
  9. The maintainer should be contactable, at least infrequently, to discuss problems in the software or fixing compatibility issues.

Base system

There is no official "base system" of the GNU operating system. GNU was designed to be a replacement for Unix operating systems of the 1980s and used the POSIX standards as a guide, but either definition would give a much larger "base system". The following list is instead a small set of GNU packages which seem closer to being "core" packages than being in any of the further down sections. Inclusions (such as plotutils) and exclusions (such as the C standard library) are of course debatable.

Name Description Provides Latest release[Note 1]
Version Date
bash GNU's UNIX compatible shell bash
coreutils base commands
cpio archiving program cpio
diffutils contains utilities to compare files diff, cmp, diff3, sdiff
findutils contains search utilities find, locate, updatedb, xargs[3]
finger user information N/A 1.37 1992-10-28
grep search for strings in files grep
groff document processing system (groff) groff
GRUB GRand Unified Bootloader grub
gzip compression program (gzip) gzip
hurd[Note 2] microkernel-based set of servers that perform the same function as a UNIX kernel N/A
inetutils useful utils for networking ftp, telnet, rsh, rlogin, tftp
linux-libre kernel that is maintained from modified versions of Linux to remove any software that does not include its source code, has its source code obfuscated, or is released under proprietary licenses N/A
plotutils useful utils for plotting to different devices graph, libplot, libplotter
readline useful library for reading command lines readline
screen a terminal multiplexer screen
sysutils[Note 3] system utilities to manage users, groups, passwords, shells add-shell, chage, chfn, chgroup, chgrpmem, chpasswd, chsh, chuser, cppw, expiry, gpasswd, grpck, gshadow, hwclock, isosize, last, lastlog, login, lsage, lsgroup, lsuser, mkgroup, mkuser, nologin, passwd, pwck, remove-shell, rmgroup, rmuser, setpwnam, vipw, wall, write 0.1.6[4] 2009
tar archiver able to create and handle file archives in various formats tar
texinfo documentation system for producing online and printed manuals N/A
time program to determine the duration of execution of a particular command time

Notes

  1. Stable versions. Note that some distros (e.g., Gentoo) use some development versions in case the stable versions are a bit old.
  2. Note that because GNU Hurd is under active development, there is no stable version. The Hurd is distributed through version control systems.
  3. No stable version yet. Current version is alpha and is not suitable for use in production systems.

Software development

The software listed below is generally useful to software developers and other computer programmers.

GNU toolchain

Main page: Software:GNU toolchain

Other libraries and frameworks

The following libraries and software frameworks are often used in combination with the basic toolchain tools above to build software. (For libraries specifically designed to implement GUI desktops, see Graphical desktop.)

Other compilers and interpreters

The following packages provide compilers and interpreters for programming languages beyond those included in the GNU Compiler Collection.

Other developer tools

User applications

The software listed below is generally useful to users not specifically engaged in software development.

Graphical desktop

The following packages provide GUI desktop environments, window managers, and associated graphics libraries.

  • GNUstep – implementation of the Cocoa/OpenStep libraries and development tools for graphical applications
  • Window Maker – window manager for the GNUstep environment

General system administration

  • GNU Accounting Utils – set of utilities providing statistics on users and processes (last, ac, accton, lastcomm, sa, dump-utmp, dump-acct)
  • GNU ddrescue – data recovery tool
  • GNU Emacs – implementation of Emacs editor
  • GNU fcrypt – on-the-fly encryption
  • GNU Guix – package manager
  • GNU libextractor – metadata extraction library and tool
  • GNU Midnight Commander[7]text-based Orthodox file manager & FTP client
  • Mtools − collection of tools to edit MS-DOS floppy disks
  • GNU nano – text editor
  • GNU parallel – shell tool for executing jobs in parallel
  • GNU Parted – hard drive partitioning program
  • GNU Privacy GuardPGP encryption replacement
  • GNU Privacy Assistant, a graphical frontend to GNU Privacy Guard
  • GNU Stow – managing the installation of software packages
  • pexec – shell tool for executing jobs in parallel

Database

  • GnowSys – kernel for semantic computing (a distributed agent oriented knowledge base.)
  • GNU dbm (GDBM)
  • GNU Ferret – Free Entity Relationship and Reverse Engineering Tool, an SQL database designer

Scientific software

  • GNU ArchimedesTCAD software for semiconductor device simulations
  • GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro) – Programs and libraries for astronomical data manipulation and analysis
  • GNU Circuit Analysis Package (Gnucap) – GNU Circuit Analysis Package
  • GNU datamash – programming language and command line utility for statistical computing
  • GNU ElectricEDA software used to draw schematics and to do integrated circuit layout
  • GNU MCSim – simulation and statistical inference tool for algebraic or differential equation systems
  • GNU Multi-Precision Library (GMP) – arbitrary precision numerical calculation programming library
  • GNU Octave – program for numerical computations, similar to MATLAB
  • GNU Scientific Library (GSL) – Numeric analysis library.
  • GNU Units – unit conversion
  • R – programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics
  • PSPP – statistical program, similar to SPSS
  • XaoS – fractal zoomer

Internet

A user page at a GNU MediaGoblin 0.2.0–based website
  • Dld — performs dynamic link editing
  • Jami (formerly GNU Ring) – a free softphone and videocall software, a drop-in replacement for Skype
  • GNU Alexandria – uses GNU Bayonne to provide access to electronic content and services for the blind over the public telephone network
  • GNU Anubis – outgoing mail processor that sits between the Mail User Agent and the Mail Transport Agent
  • GNU FM – federated[clarification needed] music community platform, most commonly associated with Libre.fm
  • GNU Mailman – electronic mailing list management
  • GNU Mailutils – utilities for electronic mail handling (includes ao. implementations of mail, movemail & mh)[8]
  • GNU MediaGoblin – decentralized media sharing
  • GNU Artanis – Web Application Framework
  • GNU Social – distributed social network that is the continuation of the StatusNet codebase
  • Gnu Sovix – PHP-based website revision system
  • GNU wget – advanced file retrieval from networks and the Internet
  • GNUnet – decentralized, peer-to-peer communication network designed to be resistant to censorship
  • Gnuzilla – version of the Mozilla Application Suite containing free software only (includes GNU IceCat web-browser)
  • lsh – implementation of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol version 2
  • GNU LibreJS – a browser add-on that detects and blocks non-free and non-trivial JavaScript[9]
  • GNU Taler – an anonymous electronic payment system[10][11]
  • GNU Pipo BBS, a BBS under the GNU General Public License[12]

Office

Multimedia

  • 3DLDF – graphics package for producing three-dimensional technical drawings (especially for inclusion in TeX documents)
  • Dia – vector graphics program for creating diagrams
  • GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program, a bitmap image editor (similar to Photoshop)
  • Gnash – player and browser plugin for the Adobe Flash file format
  • GNU LibreDWG – library for reading and writing .dwg files (used in CAD applications)
  • GNU LilyPond – music typesetting application
  • Gnu Maverik – Virtual Reality microkernel
  • Gnu Panorama – 3D framework, ray tracing

Games

  • GNU Backgammon – backgammon game
  • GNUbik – implementation of the Rubik's Cube puzzle
  • GNU Chess – chess engine for use with glChess, Xboard or similar
  • GNU Go – implementation of the board game Go
  • GNU Jump – based on Xjump; also known as SDL Jump
  • GNU Kart – racing game
  • GNU Robots – game for computer programmers
  • GNU FreeDink - implementation of Dink Smallwood adventure/role-playing game
  • Liquid War – war game

Business applications

  • GNU Health – free health and hospital information system
  • GNUmed – medical practice management software
  • GnuCash – financial accounting application
  • GNU remotecontrol[14] – a web application for managing building automation devices
  • GNU Foliot – time keeping application for small organizations[15]
  • GNU.FREE, a free voting system, suspended in 2002
  • GNU Taler - planned decentralized online payment system designed to be taxable and accessible to mainstream currencies.[16]
  • GNUe (GNU Enterprise), an enterprise planning software.

Fonts

See also

References

  1. Stallman, Richard (April 3, 2013). "Re: On the subject of Git, Bazaar, and the future of Emacs development". emacs-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  2. Stallman, Richard (April 3, 2013). "Re: On the subject of Git, Bazaar, and the future of Emacs development". emacs-devel (Mailing list). Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  3. "Findutils" (in en). https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/findutils.html. 
  4. subversion repository NEWS file of sysutils retrieved 2013-07-23
  5. "Release of version 1.5 of complexity". 29 February 2016. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2016-02/msg00012.html. 
  6. "GNUnited Nations". Free Software Foundation, Inc.. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnun/. 
  7. "Midnight Commander". https://www.gnu.org/software/mc/. 
  8. "GNU Mailutils". https://mailutils.org/. 
  9. "GNU LibreJS". The Free Software Foundation. https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/. 
  10. "GNU Software". GNU.org. https://www.gnu.org/software/. 
  11. "GNU Taler - Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Reserve". http://taler.net/. 
  12. Greve, Georg C. F. (2001). "Brave GNU World - Issue #26". https://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/issue-26.html. "The ancestry-line of the GNU Pipo BBS reaches over YAWK ("Yet Another Wersion of Citadel") back to Citadel, although it is completely independent code-wise. In fact it was a disagreement with Kenneth Haglund, author of YAWK, because of copyright-problems that triggered the development of the GNU Pipo BBS. The original development-team were Grégory Vandenbrouck and Sébastien Aperghis-Tramoni who worked on the GNU Pipo BBS with help from volunteers like Sébastien Bonnefoy." 
  13. Marston, Tim (2013-06-07). "GNU Typist 2.9.3 released" (Mailing list). info-gnu. Retrieved 2013-06-09.
  14. "GNU remotecontrol". FSF. 30 September 2013. http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/remotecontrol. 
  15. "Foliot is now part of GNU and becomes GNU Foliot". Savannah. 27 February 2016. https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=8466. 
  16. "GNU Taler 0.0.0 Released: GNU Tries to Get into Electronic Payments". https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNU-Taler-0.0.0. 
  17. "GNU FreeFont". GNU.org. https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/. 

External links