| gNewSense | |
|---|---|
 | |
 gNewSense 4.0 | |
| Developer | Current: Matt Lee[1] former: Sam Geeraerts, K.Goetz, Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley |
| OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Working state | discontinued[2] |
| Initial release | November 2, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-11-02) |
| Latest release | 4.0  [3] / 2 May 2016; 9 years ago (2 May 2016) |
| Latest preview | 4.0 Alpha 1[4] / 2 December 2014; 11 years ago (2014-12-02)[4] |
| Repository | |
| Update method | long term support |
| Package manager | apt (standard),Synaptic (Gtk+ frontend),dpkg (low-level system) |
| Supported platforms | amd64,i386,Loongson |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux) |
| Userland | GNU |
| Default user interface | GNOME |
| License | FSDG |
| Official website | www |
gNewSense was aLinux distribution, active from 2006 to 2016. It was based onDebian, and developed with sponsorship from theFree Software Foundation. Its goal was user-friendliness, but with allproprietary (e.g.binary blobs) and non-free software removed. The Free Software Foundation considered gNewSense to be composed entirely offree software.[5][6]
gNewSense took a relatively strict stance against proprietary software. For example, any documentation that gave instructions on installing proprietary software was excluded.[7]
gNewSense's last release was made in 2016 and it has not had a supported version since 2018.DistroWatch classifies gNewSense as "discontinued".[2]
The project was launched by Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley in 2006. gNewSense was originally based onUbuntu. With the 1.0 release, the Free Software Foundation provided assistance to gNewSense.[8]
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.[2][9][10][11]
There have been several indications that it may be restarted, including a website announcement in 2019, but the project has remained inactive, with no releases since 2016. DistroWatch returned it to "dormant" status again in 2019 and "discontinued" by 2022.[1][2]
As of 13 April 2021[update], the home page of the project's website displayed a blank page with ameme labelling the Free Software Foundation acult. After a short time, the website then redirected to the home page of thePureOS website.[12]
However, as of June 2021, it now redirects to the FSF's list of Free/Libre distros.[13]
By default gNewSense usesGNOME. Thegraphical user interface can be customized with the user's choice ofX display manager,window managers, and other desktop environments available to install through its hosted repositories.[14]
TheUbiquity installer allows installing to the hard disk from within theLive CD environment without the need for restarting the computer prior to installation.[15]
Besides standard system tools and other small applications, gNewSense comes installed with the following software: theLibreOffice productivity suite,[16]GNOME Web, theEmpathy instant messenger, and theGIMP for editing photos and otherraster graphics. Commonsoftware development tools including theGCC are installed by default.[17]
TheLive CD can be used to run the operating system and to install onto disk. CD images are available for download.[18]
gNewSense has made four major releases:
| Version | Code name | Release date | Supported until | Based on | Supported architectures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | DeltaD | 2006-11-02 | Unsupported: 2008-05-01 | Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" | N/a |
| 2.0 | DeltaH | 2008-04-30 | Unsupported: 2014-01-03 | Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" | N/a |
| 3.0[10][11][19] | Parkes | 2013-08-06 | 2015-12-31[20] | Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" | i386, amd64,Lemote Yeeloong |
| 4.0[16] | Ucclia | 2016-05-02 | 2018-05-31[21] | Debian 7 "Wheezy" | i386, amd64,Lemote Yeeloong |
In 2016, gNewSense announced that the next version of gNewSense would be 5.0.[22][23]
Non-free softwarerepositories 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 avoidtrademark problems that stem from the modification ofMozilla Firefox, gNewSense 1.1 rebranded it as "BurningDog". BurningDog likewise does not offer to install non-freeplugins[24] for various web media, such asAdobe Flash. gNewSense 2.0 abandoned BurningDog and adopted theEpiphany web browser (later renamed simply "Web"), a component ofGNOME, as its default browser application, and came with recommendations and instructions to optionally compile and runGNU IceCat.[25][26] gNewSense 3.0 retains Web as the default browser, but also comes with a modified version of Debian'sIceweasel that does not offer to access proprietary add-ons.[27]
Debian is anotherLinux distribution known for strict licensing requirements and adherence tofree software principles. While both Debian and gNewSense rigorously exclude non-free software andbinary blobs from their official releases, Debian maintains andhosts unofficial repositories of non-free software andfirmware binaries, and Debian free software sometimesdepends upon or suggests the optional installation ofproprietary software, under the theory thatusers' own informed discretion about the use of such software should be paramount, as expressed in Clause 5 of theDebian 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 anypackages 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 offree software solutions. Similar to Debian, gNewSense policies do not allow including documentation that are licensed under theGNU Free Documentation License with invariant sections.[31] This includes many manuals and documentation released by theGNU Project themselves.
While gNewSense was initiallyforked fromUbuntu (itself originally a fork ofDebian) 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]
Since gNewSense's repositories contain only free software, support for hardware which requires firmware and for which no free firmware exists (such as somewireless network cards) is not available.[33]
By 1 May 2008,3D graphics and application support had also been removed[34] because of licensing issues[35] withMesa 3D. After January 13, 2009, those issues had been resolved and 3D support became standard starting with the 2.2 release.[36]
In reviewing gNewSense 3.0 in August 2013, Jesse Smith ofDistroWatch noted that many of the applications provided, includingOpenOffice.org 3, Debian's de-blobbed 2.6.32 Linux kernel (based onLinux-libretools[37]), Iceweasel 3.5 andGNOME 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 former president of theFree Software Foundation, said he used gNewSense on a Lemote Yeeloong laptop in January 2010[38] and he was still using it in April 2014.[39] Since then Stallman has switched toTrisquel.[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 105MB of RAM. So this plucky little distro will perform well on even modest hardware.
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.
