(ISBN 1-882114-57-4, 108 pages plus CD-ROM)
The GNU Project has spent the past 15 years developing a Unix-like operating system whose name is GNU. Over the years, various GNU programs have been ported to MS-DOS and MS-Windows. Now we have published a collection of these ports, and some other free software, with convenient installation facilities, on a CD-ROM that comes in a book.
The GNU packages on the CD-ROM range from the versatile GNU shell Bash to a powerful text editor and programming environment (GNU Emacs) and a widely-used file-compression utility (Gzip).
For developers, this CD-ROM contains DJGPP, the MS-DOS port of GCC, which is a C++ and ANSI C compiler with a POSIX-compliant C library. In addition, it provides a full programming toolkit, from editor to debugger to project maintenance utilities. DJGPP supports a flat 32-bit address space with built-in virtual memory and more.
The contents also include the GNU calculator bc, the GNU binary utilities (including the GNU assembler and linker), Bison (a parser generator), Calc (the Emacs calculation package), cpio, Diffutils, ed, elib, enscript, Fileutils, Findutils, Flex, GNU Awk, gdb, gdbm, gperf, grep, groff, hello, ID Utils, indent, Ispell, less, m4, GNU Make, patch, Perl, RCS, sed, GNU Shellutils, tar, TeX (including LaTex and Texinfo), and the GNU Text Utilities.
Since the CD is published by the Free Software Foundation, the entire contents are free software; the source code is included, and you have the right to copy, modify and redistribute all of the software.
The programs on the CD-ROM should run on the following systems: All X86 systems (Intel 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Cyrix 586, 686) running MS-DOS 4.0 and higher, Windows 3.1/3.11, Windows 95 or 98 and NT 3.5/4.0.
We do not aim to make GNU software run best on MS Windows -- we write it for the GNU operating system. GNU software can enhance proprietary Microsoft systems in technical respects, but if you want freedom, you can't get it with a proprietary Microsoft operating system. To be free, you need to replace the proprietary system with a free operating system, such as Debian GNU/Linux.
FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to gnu@gnu.org. Other ways to contact the FSF.
Comments on these web pages to webmasters@www.gnu.org, send other questions to gnu@gnu.org.
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Updated: 8 Oct 1998 devnull