|Summary help replacing me|
|This article describes the GNU Project and lists some of the essential tools that qualify Arch Linux as a GNU/Linux distribution.|
|The aim of the GNU Project is to produce a totally free operating system. While the GNU kernel has not reached a stable version, the project has resulted in the creation of many tools that power most Unix-like operating systems. Arch Linux is such a system, using GNU software like the GRUB bootloader, Bash shell, and numerous other utilities and libraries.|
|Arch User Repository|
|Arch Compared to Other Distributions|
- The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop the GNU operating system, a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software—software which respects your freedom.
- Unix-like operating systems are built from a software collection of applications, libraries, and developer tools—plus a program to allocate resources and talk to the hardware, known as a kernel. [...]
- The combination of GNU and Linux is the GNU/Linux operating system, now used by millions and sometimes incorrectly called simply “Linux”.
- The name “GNU” is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not Unix!”
Since Arch Linux is a GNU/Linux based distribution, many of its basic tools are from the GNU Project. This article will give a brief description of the core components, as well as some other useful applications.
The Base System
At the end of the installation process, an Arch system is nothing more than the Linux Kernel, the GNU toolchain, and a few other useful command line tools. The minimal install normally contains the entire base group.
While Hurd, the GNU Kernel, is under active development, there is not yet a stable version. For this reason Arch and most other GNU based systems use the Linux Kernel. The Arch Hurd Project aims to port Arch Linux to the Hurd kernel.
C library: is "the library which defines the `system calls' and other basic facilities such as open, malloc, printf, exit..."
binary utilities: .provides the "collection of programming tools for the manipulation of object code in various object file formats"
core utilities: The .package contains "the basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities"
Among base-devel are several members of the GNU toolchain, a "suite of tools used in a serial manner [...] for developing applications and operating systems". The key components of this toolchain are:
compilation and build:
linker, assembler and other tools:
GNU Build System (autotools):
- automatically configure source code:
- automatically create Makefiles:
- library support script:
Many other optional GNU tools are available in the official repositories:
widget toolkit: GTK+
desktop environment: GNOME
image editor: GIMP
full-screen window manager: GNU Screen
For a list of all current GNU projects, see All GNU Packages