gNewSense

gNewSense is a Linux distribution based on Debian, and developed with sponsorship from the Free Software Foundation. Its goal is user-friendliness, but with all proprietary (e.g. binary blobs) and non-free software removed. The Free Software Foundation considers gNewSense to be composed entirely of free software.[4][5]

gNewSense
gNewSense 4.0
DeveloperCurrent: Matt Lee[1]
former:Sam Geeraerts, K.Goetz
Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley
OS familyLinux
Working stateDormant up to 2019, then resumed development, but no new release in years
Initial releaseNovember 2, 2006 (2006-11-02)
Latest release4.0[2] / 2 May 2016 (2016-05-02)
Latest preview4.0 Alpha 1[3] / 2 December 2014 (2014-12-02)[3]
Repository
Update methodlong term support
Package managerapt (standard), Synaptic (Gtk+ frontend), dpkg (low-level system)
Platformsamd64, i386, Loongson
Kernel typeMonolithic (Linux)
UserlandGNU
Default user interfaceGNOME
LicenseFSDG
Official websitewww.gnewsense.org

gNewSense takes a relatively strict stance against proprietary software. For example, any documentation that gives instructions on installing proprietary software is excluded.[6]

History

The project was launched by Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley in 2006. gNewSense was originally based on Ubuntu. Since the 1.0 release, the Free Software Foundation assists gNewSense.[7]

With no releases in two years, on 8 August 2011, DistroWatch classified gNewSense as "dormant". By September 2012 DistroWatch had changed the status to "active" again, and on 6 August 2013, the first version directly based on Debian, gNewSense 3 "Parkes", was released.[8][9][10][11] Under the few discussions in the Trisquel forums gNewSense was again said to be inactive in 2017, while in 2019 after gNewSense had not had releases in several years, active development was restarted with the merging of the Skeleton GNU/Linux project into it and a new maintainer taking over.

Technical aspects
gNewSense logo, used from 2007 to 2013

By default gNewSense uses GNOME. The graphical user interface can be customized with the user's choice of X display manager, window managers, and other desktop environments available to install through its hosted repositories.[12]

The Ubiquity installer allows installing to the hard disk from within the Live CD environment without the need for restarting the computer prior to installation.[13]

Besides standard system tools and other small applications, gNewSense comes installed with the following software: the LibreOffice productivity suite,[14] the GNOME Web internet browser, the Empathy instant messenger, and the GIMP for editing photos and other raster graphics. Common software development tools including the GCC are installed by default.[15]

Installation

The Live CD can be used to run the operating system and to install onto disk. CD images are available for download.[16]

Versions

gNewSense has made four major releases:

Version Code name Release date Supported until Based on Supported architectures
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0 DeltaD 2006-11-02 Old version, no longer maintained: 2008-05-01 Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" N/A
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0 DeltaH 2008-04-30 Old version, no longer maintained: 2014-01-03 Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" N/A
Old version, no longer maintained: 3.0[10][11][17] Parkes 2013-08-06 style="background-color: #FDB3AB; " title="Old version, no longer maintained" data-sort-value=" 2015-12-31[18]" | Old version, no longer maintained: 2015-12-31[19] Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" i386, amd64, Lemote Yeeloong
Old version, no longer maintained: 4.0[14] Ucclia 2016-05-02 style="background-color: #FDB3AB; " title="Old version, no longer maintained" data-sort-value=" 2018-05-31[20]" | Old version, no longer maintained: 2018-05-31[21] Debian 7 "Wheezy" i386, amd64, Lemote Yeeloong
Legend:
Old version
Older version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release

In 2016, gNewSense announced that the next version of gNewSense would be 5.0.[22][23]

Comparison with other distributions

Non-free software repositories are not provided by the gNewSense project, and most non-free documentation and artwork have been removed. While it was based on Ubuntu, the "Universe" package repository was enabled by default. In order to avoid trademark problems that stem from the modification of Mozilla Firefox, gNewSense 1.1 rebranded it as "BurningDog". BurningDog likewise does not offer to install non-free plugins[24] for various web media, such as Adobe Flash. gNewSense 2.0 abandoned BurningDog and adopted the Epiphany web browser (later renamed simply "Web"), a component of GNOME, as its default browser application, and came with recommendations and instructions to optionally compile and run GNU IceCat.[25][26] gNewSense 3.0 retains Web as the default browser, but also comes with a modified version of Debian's Iceweasel that does not offer to access proprietary add-ons.[27]

Debian is another Linux distribution known for strict licensing requirements and adherence to free software principles. While both Debian and gNewSense rigorously exclude non-free software and binary blobs from their official releases, Debian maintains and hosts unofficial repositories of non-free software and firmware binaries, and Debian free software sometimes depends upon or suggests the optional installation of proprietary software, under the theory that users' own informed discretion about the use of such software should be paramount, as expressed in Clause 5 of the Debian Social Contract[28] (though Debian's democratic project management has seen this stance become a source of recurrent controversy[29][30]). gNewSense, by contrast, does not provide any packages which depend on or suggest the use of non-free software, firmware, extensions, or plugins, nor does the gNewSense Project provide convenience-access to proprietary software for any reason, seeing this as an abrogation of the commitment to the development of free software solutions. Similar to Debian, gNewSense policies do not allow including documentation that are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License with invariant sections.[31] This includes many manuals and documentation released by the GNU Project themselves.

While gNewSense was initially forked from Ubuntu (itself originally a fork of Debian) as a result of founding developer Paul O'Malley's prior work with Ubuntu, as of gNewSense 3.0 the distribution has tracked Debian as the base for its software distribution. In part this has been because the Debian Project does carefully disaggregate the free software in its official distribution from the proprietary software it provides courtesy access to.[32] Indeed, many of the packages, including Debian-particular packages (such as Iceweasel and Icedove) ported to gNewSense are simply modified in such a way that they no longer provide such courtesy access to non-free software options.[27]

Limitations
See also: Software remastering

Since gNewSense's repositories contain only free software, support for hardware which requires firmware and for which no free firmware exists (such as some wireless network cards) is not available.[33]

By May 1, 2008, 3D graphics and application support had also been removed[34] because of licensing issues[35] with Mesa 3D. After January 13, 2009, those issues had been resolved and 3D support became standard starting with the 2.2 release.[36]

Reception

In reviewing gNewSense 3.0 in August 2013, Jesse Smith of DistroWatch noted that many of the applications provided, including OpenOffice.org 3, Debian's de-blobbed 2.6.32 Linux kernel (based on Linux-libre tools[37]), Iceweasel 3.5 and GNOME 2.30 were quite out of date. Smith concluded this review with the following words:[33]

Generally speaking, I was happy with gNewSense 3.0. Being based on Debian, the distribution can be counted on to provide both stability and amazing performance. The distribution is lean, fast and uncluttered. The flip side to this is gNewSense's system installer and default package management tools are geared more toward experienced users and will probably provide a steep learning curve to novice Linux users. Not much is automated and there is a minimum of hand holding. The main feature of gNewSense, the lack of proprietary software, is also a double-edged blade. On the one hand, it means the entire operating system can be audited, modified and redistributed. This is great from the perspective of software freedom. The fact that the distribution can play most multimedia formats and handled Flash content fairly well is a testament of the power of free and open source software. The one problem I ran into with gNewSense's software policy was with regards to my wireless network card. Most distributions ship with the non-free Intel firmware, but gNewSense doesn't include it and this means the distribution isn't a good fit with my laptop. It is, on the other hand , a great match with my desktop system.

Richard Stallman (founder and president of the Free Software Foundation) said he used gNewSense in January 2010[38] and he was still using it in April 2014.[39] Since then Stallman has switched to Trisquel.[40]

Serdar Yegulalp reviewed gNewSense for InfoWorld.[41] He is said:

The base of gNewSense is the Debian distribution, which already excludes proprietary binary blobs and unfree software but provides access to them via repositories. But gNewSense goes further: It doesn't even include access to such software in its repositories. Its documentation also includes only material that's compatible with the GNU Free Documentation License.

In the post on Network World of gNewSense 3.1 in February 2014, Bryan Lunduke reviewed this Linux distribution with following words:[42]

In fact, the stock installation of gNewSense – thanks, in large part, to using older and lighter versions of popular software – is incredibly fast and astoundingly un-taxing on your hardware. The whole system, when logged in with no additional software running, uses roughly 105 MB of RAM. So this plucky little distro will perform well on even modest hardware.

gollark: This is a vaguely ridiculous argument too.(even ignoring my issues with this particular case, it's false-dichotomous)
gollark: I do not consider this *less* ominous.
gollark: There are something like four people with actual power to do that and you haven't contacted any as far as I can tell.
gollark: Not really. I don't mind sonata much.
gollark: Isn't it just a role?

See also

References
  1. "gNewSense". www.gnewsense.org.
  2. "[gNewSense-users] gNewSense 4.0 released". Lists.nongnu.org. 2016-05-02. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  3. "Ucclia alpha 1". gNewSense-dev mailing list.
  4. "List of Free GNU/Linux Distributions - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation". Gnu.org. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  5. Lee, Matt (2019). "gNewSense". www.gnewsense.org. Retrieved 2019-10-05. Hello, I'm Matt Lee, I've recently taken over maintaining gNewSense from Sam [..] I'm Matt Lee: former FSF campaigns manager, [..] I have a vision for desktop GNU/Linux that is unfulfilled.
  6. "Community guidelines – gNewSense GNU/Linux". Wiki.gnewsense.org. 2010-04-30. Archived from the original on 2011-09-02. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
  7. "gNewSense 1.0 released – Free Software Foundation". Fsf.org. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
  8. "DistroWatch.com: gNewSense". Retrieved 2012-09-13.
  9. Goetz, K. (12 October 2011). "News". gNewSense. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
  10. "FAQ – gNewSense GNU/Linux". gNewSense. Archived from the original on 2015-05-08. Retrieved 2014-07-19.
  11. Sneddon, Joey (8 August 2013). "gNewSense 3 Released, Is No Longer Based on Ubuntu". OMG Ubuntu. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  12. Introduction to the Desktop Environment Archived 2014-07-27 at the Wayback Machine gnewsense.org
  13. Using the Live CD Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine gnewsense.org
  14. Larabel, Michael (6 May 2016). "FSF-Approved gNewSense 4 GNU/Linux Distribution Released - Phoronix". Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  15. Using gNewSense Archived 2014-07-27 at the Wayback Machine gnewsense.org
  16. "Download - gNewSense GNU/Linux". Archived from the original on 6 December 2017. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  17. Freedom and gNewSense 3.0, DistroWatch Weekly
  18. "Re: [Gnewsense-dev] Likely EoL date for gNewSense 3.1". lists.nongnu.org.
  19. "Re: [Gnewsense-dev] Likely EoL date for gNewSense 3.1". lists.nongnu.org.
  20. "Release of gNewSense 4 (beta) codenamed Ucclia | Trisquel GNU/Linux - Run free!".
  21. "Release of gNewSense 4 (beta) codenamed Ucclia | Trisquel GNU/Linux - Run free!".
  22. "[Gnewsense-dev] gNewSense 5". lists.nongnu.org.
  23. "gNewSense 5 Hopes To Be A Speedier Release Of The FSF-Approved Linux OS - Phoronix". www.phoronix.com.
  24. "gNewSense Official Website | Main / PressRelease20070122". Gnewsense.org. 2007-01-22. Archived from the original on 2012-03-03. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
  25. "gNewSense MainRepo (old)". Archived from the original on 2016-07-03. Retrieved 2014-08-24.
  26. "gNewSense 3.0 IceCat Compile Instructions". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2014-08-24.
  27. "gNewSense 3.0 Documentation, Differences with Debian". Archived from the original on 2019-02-24. Retrieved 2014-08-24.
  28. "Debian Social Contract". www.debian.org.
  29. "General Resolution: Status of the non-free section". www.debian.org.
  30. "General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel". www.debian.org.
  31. "LicenceInformationUpdate - gNewSense GNU/Linux". Gnewsense.org. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  32. "gNewSense FAQ". Archived from the original on 2015-05-08. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  33. Smith, Jesse (26 August 2013). "Freedom and gNewSense 3.0". DistroWatch. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
  34. "Main/Deltah – gNewSense GNU/Linux". Gnewsense.org. Archived from the original on 2009-12-12. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
  35. xserver-xorg: wordy SGI license may not be free Archived 2008-09-27 at the Wayback Machine bugs.gnewsense.org
  36. "3D graphics are 100% free software — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software". Fsf.org. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
  37. "/gnewsense/packages-parkes/linux-2.6 : contents of debian/README.gNewSense at revision 16". gnu.org. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
  38. "An interview with Richard Stallman". Richard.stallman.usesthis.com. 2010-01-23. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
  39. Vito Gentile. "GNU/Linux Meeting 2014: Richard Stallman approda a Palermo" [GNU / Linux Meeting 2014: Richard Stallman has landed in Palermo] (in Italian). HTML.it. Retrieved 2014-04-19.
  40. "How I do my Computing". Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  41. Yegulalp, Serdar (May 9, 2016). "Free as can be: gNewSense is true GNU Linux". InfoWorld.
  42. Lunduke, Bryan (February 19, 2014). "gNewSense 3.1: The FSF-approved Linux distro that's stuck in 2010". Network World.
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