List of GNU packages

This list of GNU packages lists notable software packages developed for or 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" in many situations where other observers would just write "Linux", and "free software" rather than "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	Version[Note 1]
bash	GNU's UNIX compatible shell	bash	4.4 (September 15, 2016) [±][3]
coreutils	base commands	fileutils: chgrp, chown, chmod, cp, dd, df, dir, du, ln, ls, mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, mv, rm, etc. textutils: cat, cksum, head, tail, md5sum, nl, od, pr, tsort, join, wc, tac, paste, etc. shellutils: basename, chroot, date, dirname, echo, env, groups, hostname, nice, nohup, printf, sleep, etc.	8.26 (November 30, 2016) [±][4]
cpio	archiving program	cpio	2.11 (March 10, 2010) [±][5]
diffutils	contains utilities to compare files	diff, cmp, diff3, sdiff	3.2 (September 2, 2011)
findutils	contains search utilities	find, locate, updatedb, xargs	4.4.2, (June 6, 2009)
finger	user information	n/a	1.37, (October 28, 1992)
grep	search for strings in files	grep	2.10, (November 16, 2011)
groff	document processing system (groff)	groff	1.22.2 (February 7, 2013[6]) [±]
GRUB	GRand Unified Bootloader	grub	2.00 (GRUB2) (June 27, 2012) [±]
gzip	compression program (gzip)	gzip	1.7 (28 March 2016) [±][7]
hurd[Note 2]	microkernel-based set of servers that perform the same function as a UNIX kernel	n/a	0.7, (October 31, 2015)
inetutils	useful utils for networking	ftp, telnet, rsh, rlogin, tftp	1.9, (December 31, 2011)
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	4.3, (November 2, 2015)
plotutils	useful utils for plotting to different devices	graph, libplot, libplotter	2.6, (September 27, 2009)
readline	useful library for reading command lines	readline	6.2 (February 14, 2011) [±][8]
screen	a terminal multiplexer	screen	4.4.0 (June 19, 2016) [±]
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[9] (2009)
tar	archiver able to create and handle file archives in various formats	tar	various (there are various tar implementations) (various) [±]
texinfo	documentation system for producing online and printed manuals	n/a	6.1 (February 6, 2016[10]) [±]
time	program to determine the duration of execution of a particular command	time	1.7, (July 11, 1996)

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 HURD is under active development, there is no stable version. 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

• GNU Binutils – contains the GNU assembler (as) and the GNU linker (ld)
• GNU bison – parser generator intended to replace yacc
• GNU build system (autotools) – contains Autoconf, Automake, Autoheader, and Libtool
• GNU Compiler Collection – optimizing compiler for many programming languages, including C, C++, Fortran, Ada, and Java
• GNU Debugger (gdb) – an advanced debugger
• GNU m4 – macro processor
• GNU make – Make program for GNU

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.)

• BFD – object file library
• DotGNU – replacement for Microsoft .NET
• GNU C Library (glibc) – POSIX-compliant C library
• GNU Classpath – libraries for Java
• GNU FriBidi – a library that implements Unicode's Bidirectional Algorithm
• GNU ease.js – A Classical Object-Oriented framework for JavaScript
• GNU gettext – internationalization library
• Gnulib – portability library designed for use with the GNU build system
• GNU libmicrohttpd – embeddable HTTP server
• GNU lightning – just-in-time compilation for generating machine language
• GNU oSIP – Session Initiation Protocol library to implement VoIP applications
• GNU Portable Threads (pth) – software threads for POSIX-compatible operating systems

Other compilers and interpreters

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

• CLISP – ANSI Common Lisp implementation (compiler, debugger, and interpreter)
• Gawk – GNU awk implementation
• GnuCOBOL – COBOL compiler
• GNU Common Lisp – implementation of Common Lisp
• GNU MDK – a development kit for programming in MIX
• GNU Pascal – Pascal compiler
• GNU Smalltalk – ANSI Smalltalk-98 implementation (interpreter and class library)
• MIT/GNU Scheme – interpreter, compiler and library for the Scheme programming language developed at MIT
• SmartEiffel – GNU Eiffel compiler

Other developer tools

• Data Display Debugger – debugger front-end for several debuggers (ddd)
• GNU arch – distributed revision control system (deprecated in favor of GNU Bazaar)
• GNU AutoGen – active tier-style tool for automated code generation
• GNU Bazaar – distributed revision control system
• GNU cflow – generates C flow graphs
• GNU cppi – indents C preprocessor directives in files to reflect their nesting
• GNU Fontutils – font management utilities
• GNU gperf – perfect hash function generator
• GNU indent – program to indent C and C++ source code
• GNU complexity – measures the complexity of C source code^[11]

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.

• GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program, a bitmap image editor (similar to Photoshop)
• GTK+ – GIMP Toolkit, containing the GTK+, GDK, and GLib set of libraries (used by the GIMP and GNOME)
• GNOME – GNU Network Object Model Environment, the official GNU desktop platform
• 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^[12] – text-based Orthodox file manager & FTP client
• GNU parallel – shell tool for executing jobs in parallel
• GNU Parted – hard drive partitioning program
• GNU Privacy Guard – PGP encryption replacement
• 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

• GMP – arbitrary precision numerical calculation programming library
• GNU Archimedes – TCAD software for semiconductor device simulations
• Gnucap – GNU Circuit Analysis Package
• GNU datamash – programming language and command line utility for statistical computing
• GNU Electric – EDA software used to draw schematics and to do integrated circuit layout
• GNU Octave – program for numerical computations
• GSL – GNU Scientific Library
• GNU Units – unit conversion
• PSPP – statistical program similar to SPSS
• R – programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics
• XaoS – fractal zoomer

Internet

A user page at a GNU MediaGoblin 0.2.0–based website

• 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 music community platform, most commonly associated with Libre.fm
• GNU Mailman – electronic mailing list management
• GNU MediaGoblin – decentralized media sharing
• 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^[13]
• GNU Taler – an anonymous electronic payment system^[14][15]

Office

• GNU Aspell – spell-checker designed to eventually replace Ispell
• GNU gcal – calculating and printing calendars
• GNU Miscfiles – several data files including standard airport, country, and language codes
• GNU Typist – multi-lingual typing tutor^[16]
• Gnumeric – spreadsheet program (Excel compatible)
• Ocrad – optical character recognition

Multimedia

• 3DLDF – graphics package for producing three-dimensional technical drawings (especially for inclusion in TeX documents)
• Dia – vector graphics program for creating diagrams
• 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
• 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^[17] – a web application for managing building automation devices
• GNU Foliot – time keeping application for small organizations^[18]
• GNU Taler - upcoming decentralized online payment system designed to be taxable and accessible to mainstream currencies.^[19][20][21]
• GNUe (GNU Enterprise), an enterprise planning software.

Fonts

• GNU FreeFont – a family of scalable outline fonts^[22]
• GNU Unifont

See also

• Free software movement
• High Priority Free Software Projects

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. "Bash-4.4". September 15, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
4. Brady, Pádraig (2016-11-30). "[coreutils-announce] coreutils-8.26 released [stable]". coreutils-announce (Mailing list). Retrieved 2016-11-30.
5. Poznyakoff, Sergey (2010-03-10). "cpio-2.11 released [stable]". info-gnu (Mailing list). Retrieved 2010-03-21.
6. Lemberg, Werner (2013-02-07). "groff 1.22.2 has been released" (Mailing list). info-gnu. Retrieved 2013-02-07.
7. Meyering, Jim (2016-03-28). "gzip-1.7 released [stable]". Retrieved 2016-03-28.
8. Ramey, Chet (2011-02-14). "Readline-6.2 available for FTP". info-gnu (Mailing list). Retrieved 2011-05-20.
9. subversion repository NEWS file of sysutils retrieved 2013-07-23
10. Smith, Gavin (2015-06-26). "Texinfo 6.0 released" (Mailing list). info-gnu. Retrieved 2015-06-29.
11. "Release of version 1.5 of complexity". 29 February 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
12. https://www.gnu.org/software/mc/
13. "GNU LibreJS". The Free Software Foundation. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
14. "GNU Software". GNU.org. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
15. "GNU Taler - Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Reserve". Retrieved September 24, 2015.
16. Marston, Tim (2013-06-07). "GNU Typist 2.9.3 released" (Mailing list). info-gnu. Retrieved 2013-06-09.
17. "GNU remotecontrol". directory.fsf.org. FSF. 30 September 2013.
18. "Foliot is now part of GNU and becomes GNU Foliot". Savannah. 27 February 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
22. "GNU FreeFont". GNU.org.

External links

• FSF Free Software Directory – All GNU Packages