Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

GNU Software

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If you're looking for a whole system to install, see our list of GNU/Linux distributions which are entirely free software.

GNU is an operating system which is 100% free software. It was launched in 1983 by Richard Stallman (rms) and has been developed by many people working together for the sake of freedom of all software users to control their computing. Technically, GNU is generally like Unix. But unlike Unix, GNU gives its users freedom.

The GNU system contains all of the official GNU software packages (which are listed below), and also includes non-GNU free software, notably TeX and the X Window System. Also, the GNU system is not a single static set of programs; users and distributors may select different packages according to their needs and desires. The result is still a variant of the GNU system.

If you're looking for a whole system to install, see our list of GNU/Linux distributions which are entirely free software.

To look for individual free software packages, both GNU and non-GNU, please see the Free Software Directory: a categorized, searchable database of free software. The Directory is actively maintained by the Free Software Foundation and includes links to program home pages where available, as well as entries for all GNU packages. Another list of all GNU packages is below. Free software documentation links are listed separately.

Finally, we have a short list of free software for Microsoft Windows, for Windows users who would like to try free software.

How to get GNU software

GNU software is available by several different methods:

Download a wholly free GNU/Linux distribution.
Get a copy from a friend.
Buy a computer with a wholly free GNU/Linux system preinstalled from one of the companies that offers this.
Download individual packages from the web or via FTP: we provide source code for all GNU software as free software, and free of charge. (Please also make a donation to the FSF if you can, to help support the development of more free software.)
Use the GNU Guix functional package manager to install and manage GNU package releases.
Use the GNU GSRC collection to easily install the latest GNU package releases on their own, without conflicting with any system versions.
Use the GNU PPA or GNUstep PPA (Personal Package Archive) on Trisquel, gNewSense, or related distros to get the latest releases suitably packaged.
Get the development sources for a package and build them. Many GNU packages keep their development sources at the GNU hosting site savannah.gnu.org. Some packages use other source repositories, or have none at all. Each package's web pages should give the specifics.

Develop GNU software

The FSF maintains a list of high-priority free software projects; please help with these projects if you can. For other ways to contribute to GNU, including reviving unmaintained GNU packages and helping with development, see the GNU help wanted page.

If you're writing a new program and would like to make your software an official GNU package, see the evaluation information and submission form. Refer to the ethical repository criteria for guidance choosing a hosting service for your project.

If you're maintaining or developing a GNU package, whether newly dubbed or of long standing, this short list of tips for GNU maintainers may be useful, along with this information about GNU software developer resources.

All GNU packages

Here is a list of all current GNU packages, using their package identifiers (rather than long names) for brevity, and sorted alphabetically. If you have corrections to or questions about this list, please email <maintainers@gnu.org>.

Also available are lists of:

short descriptions for all GNU packages;
documentation for GNU packages (arranged by category);
GNU package logos; and
recent GNU releases.

3dldf a2ps acct acm adns alive anubis apl archimedes aris artanis aspell auctex autoconf autoconf-archive autogen automake avl ballandpaddle barcode bash bayonne bazaar bc bfd binutils bison bool bpel2owfn c-graph ccaudio ccd2cue ccide ccrtp ccscript cflow cgicc chess cim classpath classpathx clisp cobol combine commoncpp complexity config consensus coreutils cpio cppi cssc cursynth dap datamash dc ddd ddrescue dejagnu denemo dia dico diction diffutils dionysus direvent djgpp dmd dominion dr-geo easejs ed edma electric emacs emacs-muse emms enscript eprints epsilon fdisk ferret findutils fisicalab fontutils freedink freefont freeipmi freetalk fribidi gama garpd gawk gcal gcc gcide gcl gcompris gdb gdbm gengen gengetopt gettext gforth ggradebook ghostscript gift gimp glean gleem glib global glpk glue gmediaserver gmp gnash gnat gnats gnatsweb gnome gnowsys gnu-c-manual gnu-crypto gnu-pw-mgr gnuae gnuastro gnubatch gnubg gnubiff gnubik gnucap gnucash gnucobol gnucomm gnudos gnue gnufm gnugo gnuit gnujdoc gnujump gnukart gnulib gnumach gnumed gnumeric gnump3d gnun gnunet gnupg gnupod gnuprologjava gnuradio gnurobots gnuschool gnushogi gnusound gnuspeech gnuspool gnustandards gnustep gnutls gnutrition gnuzilla goptical gorm gpaint gperf gprolog grabcomics greg grep gretl groff grub gsasl gsegrafix gsl gslip gsrc gss gtick gtk+ gtypist guile guile-dbi guile-gnome guile-ncurses guile-opengl guile-rpc guile-sdl guix gurgle gv gvpe gxmessage gzip halifax health hello help2man hp2xx html-info httptunnel hurd hyperbole icecat idutils ignuit indent inetutils inklingreader intlfonts jacal java-getopt jel jwhois kawa kopi leg less libc libcdio libdbh liberty-eiffel libextractor libffcall libgcrypt libiconv libidn libjit libmatheval libmicrohttpd libredwg librejs libsigsegv libtasn1 libtool libunistring libxmi lightning lilypond lims linux-libre liquidwar6 lispintro lrzsz lsh m4 macchanger mailman mailutils make marst maverik mc mcron mcsim mdk mediagoblin melting metaexchange metahtml mifluz mig miscfiles mit-scheme moe motti mpc mpfr mpria mtools nana nano nano-archimedes ncurses nettle network ocrad octave oleo orgadoc osip panorama parallel parted pascal patch paxutils pcb pdf pem pexec pgccfd phantom_home pies pipo plotutils polyxmass powerguru proxyknife pspp psychosynth pth pyconfigure pythonwebkit qexo quickthreads r radius rcs readline recutils reftex remotecontrol rottlog rpge rush sather scm screen sed serveez sharutils shishi shmm shtool sipwitch slib smalltalk social solfege spacechart speex spell sqltutor src-highlite stalkerfs stow stump superopt swbis sysutils taler talkfilters tar termcap termutils teseq teximpatient texinfo texmacs thales time tramp trans-coord trueprint unifont units unrtf userv uucp vc-dwim vcdimager vera vmgen wb wdiff websocket4j webstump wget which womb xaos xboard xhippo xlogmaster xmlat xnee xorriso zile

Decommissioned GNU packages

GNU packages are occasionally decommissioned, generally because they've been superseded by, or integrated into, other packages. If you have time and interest in resurrecting any of these, please contact <maintainers@gnu.org>. Here is the list; we leave the old project pages up (when they existed): aeneas, aetherspace, aroundme, 3dkit, abcsh, awacs, cfs-el, checker, cons, dgs (display ghostscript), dld, dotgnu, dotgnu-pnet, dr.genius, elib, fcrypt, ffp, fhp, free (gnu.free), gcron (see mcron), gfe, ggv (see gv), gicqd, giptables, gmorph, gnochive, gnotary, gnotepad+, gnubios, gnu-arch, gnu-queue, gnucad, gnufi, gnupedia (see wikipedia), gnuskies, gnusql, gnustep-db, gnuts, goldwater, goodbye, goose, gphoto, graphics, grover, gtkeditor, gtkeyboard, guss, hegemonie, isofsmk, jdresolve, lengualibre, leonardo, libopts (see autogen), mana, messenger, mgcp, mll2html, myserver, obst, octal, p2c, packaging, patchwork, phpgroupware, pips, poc, proto, radar, rat, regex, rpge, snakecharmer, songanizer, sourceinstall, sovix, sweater, sxml, toutdoux, vmslib, webpublish, xbase, xinfo, xmhtml, zebra.