Go to the previous, next section.
We offer Unix software source distributions tapes in tar format
on the following media:
We also offer:
The contents of the various 9-track and cartridge tapes for Unix systems are the same (except for the RS/6000 Emacs tape, which also has executables); only the media are different (see the "Free Software Foundation Order Form"). Source code for the documentation comes in Texinfo format. We welcome all bug reports.
Some of the files on the tapes may be compressed with gzip to
make them fit. Refer to the top-level `README' file at the
beginning of each tape for instructions on uncompressing them.
uncompress and unpack do not work!
Version numbers listed after program names were current at the time this Bulletin was published. When you order a distribution tape, some of the programs might be newer, and therefore the version number higher.
In 1975, Richard Stallman developed the first Emacs, an extensible, customizable real-time display editor. GNU Emacs is his second implementation. It offers true Lisp--smoothly integrated into the editor--for writing extensions, and provides an interface to MIT's X Window System. In addition to its powerful native command set, extensions which emulate other popular editors are distributed: vi, EDT (DEC's VMS editor), and Gosling (aka Unipress) Emacs. It has many other features, which make it a full computing support environment. It is described by the GNU Emacs Manual, the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, and a reference card. Source for all three come with the software.
GNU Emacs 18.59 runs on many Unix systems (arranged by hardware): Alliant FX/80 & FX/2800, Altos 3068, Amdahl (UTS), Apollo, AT&T (3Bs & 7300 PC), DG Aviion, Bull DPX/2 (2nn & 3nn) CCI 5/32 & 6/32, Celerity, Convex, Digital (DECstation 3100 & 5000 (PMAXes), Mips, VAX (BSD, System V, & VMS)), Motorola Delta 147 & 187 Dual, Elxsi 6400, Encore (DPC, APC, & XPC), Gould, HP (9000 series 200, 300, 700, & 800, but not series 500), HLH Orion (original & 1/05), IBM (RS/6000 (AIX), RT/PC (4.2 & AIX), & PS/2 (AIX (386 only))), ISI (Optimum V, 80386), Intel 860 & 80386 (BSD, Esix, SVR3, SVR4, SCO, ISC, IX, AIX, & others (for MS-DOS see "MS-DOS Distribution" & "Free Software for Microcomputers")), Iris (2500, 2500 Turbo, & 4D), Masscomp, MIPS, National Semiconductor 32000, NeXT (Mach), NCR Tower 32 (SVR2 & SVR3), Nixdorf Targon 31, Nu (TI & LMI), pfa50, Plexus, Prime EXL, Pyramid (original & MIPS), Sequent (Balance & Symmetry), SONY News (m68k & MIPS), Stride (system release 2), all Suns (including 386i), all SunOS & some Solaris versions, Tadpole, Tahoe, Tandem Integrity S2, Tektronix (16000 & 4300), Triton 88, Ustation E30 (SS5E), Whitechapel (MG1), & Wicat.
Arranged by operating system: AIX (RS/6000, RT/PC, 386-PS/2), BSD (versions 4.1, 4.2, 4.3), DomainOS, Esix (386), HP-UX (HP 9000 series 200, 300, 700, & 800 but not series 500), ISC (386), IX (386), Mach, Microport, NewsOS (Sony m68k & MIPS) SCO (386), SVR0 (Vax & AT&T 3Bs), SVR2, SVR3, SVR4, Solaris 2.0, SunOS, UTS (Amdahl), Ultrix (versions 3.0, 4,1), Uniplus 5.2 (Dual machines), VMS (versions 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 5,5), & Xenix (386).
Version 19 is in beta-release. Unlike some other recent derivations of Emacs, GNU Emacs 19 continues to work on character-only terminals as well as under the X Window System. New features in Emacs 19 include:
Emacs 19 has been tested on these machines: Sun SPARCstation (running SunOS 4.1.1, 4.1.2 & 4.1.3, and Solaris 1.0 & 1.1), DECstation (running Ultrix), IBM RS/6000 (running AIX 3.2), HP 9000/300 (running BSD 4.3), Motorola Delta SysV68 on mvme147 (running system V r3v7), & IBM-compatibles using an 80386 or 80486 (running Linux 0.99.9, Esix System V Release 4.0.4, or SCO 3.2v4 (with ODT, SCO's version of X)).
Other configurations supported by Emacs 18 should work with few adjustments; as users tell us more about their experiences with different systems, we will augment the list.
Calc (written by Dave Gillespie in Emacs Lisp) is an extensible, advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool that runs as part of GNU Emacs. It comes with source for the Calc Manual and reference card, which serves as a tutorial and reference. If you wish, you can use Calc just as a simple four-function calculator, but it provides additional features including choice of algebraic or RPN (stack-based) entry, logarithmic functions, trigonometric and financial functions, arbitrary precision, complex numbers, vectors, matrices, dates, times, infinities, sets, algebraic simplification, differentiation, and integration.
CLISP is a Common Lisp implementation by Bruno Haible and Michael Stoll. It mostly supports the Common Lisp described by Common LISP: The Language (1st edition). CLISP includes an interpreter, a compiler and, for some machines, a screen editor. CLISP needs only 1.5 MB of memory and runs on many microcomputers (including the Atari ST, Amiga 500-2000, most MS-DOS systems, & OS/2) and on some Unix workstations (Linux, SunOS (SPARC), Sun386, HP-UX (HP 9000/800), & others).
PCL is a free implementation of a large subset of CLOS, the Common Lisp Object System. PCL was written by Xerox Corporation.
gzip 1.0.7
Some of the contents of our tape and FTP distributions are compressed.
We have software on our tapes to uncompress these files. Due to patent
troubles with compress, we have switched to another compression
program, gzip. gzip can expand LZW-compressed files but
uses a different algorithm for compression which generally produces
better results. It also uncompresses files compressed with System V's
pack program.
make 3.67
GNU make supports POSIX 1003.2 and has all but a few obscure
features of the BSD and System V versions of make, as well as
many of our own extensions. GNU extensions include long options,
parallel compilation, conditional execution, and functions for text
manipulation. Source for the Make Manual comes with the program.
GNU make is on several of our tapes because some native
make programs lack the VPATH feature essential for using
the GNU configure system to its full extent. A script is included to
build GNU make on such systems.
Texinfo is a set of utilities which generate printed manuals and online hypertext-style documentation (called "Info"), and provide means for reading the online versions. Version 3 contains both GNU Emacs Lisp and standalone C programs, as well as source for the Texinfo Manual.
Texinfo is distributed on several of the tapes to insure that it is possible to rebuild and read Info files for various programs.
This tape contains MIT Scheme 7.1. Scheme is a simplified, lexically-scoped dialect of Lisp. It was designed at MIT and other universities to teach students the art of programming, and to research new parallel programming constructs and compilation techniques. The current version conforms to the (MIT AI Lab Memo 848b), for which TeX source is included.
MIT Scheme is written in C, but is presently hard to bootstrap. Binaries which can be used to bootstrap Scheme are available for the following systems:
This tape contains programming tools: compilers, interpreters, and related programs (parsers, conversion programs, debuggers, etc.).
The GNU C compiler is a fairly portable optimizing compiler which performs automatic register allocation, common sub-expression elimination, invariant code motion from loops, induction variable optimizations, constant propagation and copy propagation, delayed popping of function call arguments, tail recursion elimination, integration of inline functions, and frame pointer elimination, plus many local optimizations that are automatically deduced from the machine description.
GCC supports full ANSI C, traditional C, and GNU C extensions. It generates good code for the 32000, 680x0, 80386, Alliant, Convex, Tahoe & VAX CPUs, and for these RISC CPUs: i860, Pyramid, SPARC, & SPUR. The MIPS RISC CPU is also supported. Other supported systems include (arranged by hardware): 386 (AIX), Alliant FX/8, Altos 3068, Apollo 68000/68020 (Aegis), AT&T 3B1, Convex C1 & C2, DECstation 3100 & 5000, DEC VAX, Encore MultiMax (NS32000), Genix NS32000, Harris HCX-7 & HCX-9, HP-UX 68000/68020, HP 9000 series 200 & 300 (BSD), IBM PS/2 (AIX), Intel 386 (System V, Xenix, BSD, but not MS-DOS (but see "MS-DOS Distribution" & "Free Software for Microcomputers")), Iris MIPS machine, ISI 68000/68020, MIPS, NeXT, Pyramid (original), Sequent Balance (NS32000) and Symmetry (i386), SONY News, Sun (2, 3 (optionally with FPA), 4, SPARCstation, & Sun-386i).
Arranged by operating system: AIX (i386-PS/2), BSD (Alliant FX/8, Apollo, Convex, HP m68k (series 200 & 300), i386, ISI m68k, MIPS, Pyramid (original), Sequent (Balance & Symmetry), Genix (NS32000), HP-UX (m68k), Irix (Iris MIPS), Mach (NeXT m68k), NewsOS (Sony m68k), SunOS (Sun-2, Sun-3, Sun-4, SPARC, & Sun--386i), System V (i386, Altos 3068, AT&T 3B1), Ultrix (DECstation 3100 & 5000, VAX), Umax (Encore NS32000), and Xenix (i386).
Source for the GCC manual, Using and Porting GNU CC, is included with the compiler. The manual describes how to run and install the GNU C compiler, and how to port it to new systems. It describes new features and incompatibilities of the compiler, but people not familiar with C will also need a good reference on the C programming language.
G++ is a set of changes for GCC version 1 which supports C++.
As far as possible, G++ is kept compatible with the evolving draft
ANSI standard, but not with cfront (the AT&T compiler), as
cfront has been diverging from ANSI. G++ comes with source
for the GNU G++ User's Guide (not yet published on paper).
G++ compiles source quickly, provides good error messages, and works
well with GDB. Each release of G++ 1 depends on the same numbered
release of GCC 1 (in GCC version 2, G++ is merged).
The GNU C++ library, libg++, is an extensive, documented collection of C++ classes and support tools for use with G++.
The NIH Class Library (formerly known as "OOPS", Object-Oriented Program Support) is a portable collection of G++ classes, similar to those in Smalltalk-80, which has been developed by Keith Gorlen of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), using the C++ programming language.
ld or GDB) to support many different
formats in a clean way. BFD provides a portable interface, so that only
BFD needs to know the actual details of a particular format. One
consequence of this design is that all of programs using BFD will
support formats such as a.out, COFF, ELF, and ROSE. BFD comes with
documentation in Texinfo form.
In GDB 4, object files and symbol tables are now read via the BFD library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple object file types such as a.out and COFF. Other features include improvements to the command language, remote debugging over serial lines or TCP/IP, and watchpoints (breakpoints triggered when the value of an expression changes). Exception handling, SunOS shared libraries, and C++ multiple inheritance are only supported when used with GCC version 2.
GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library. So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
GDB 4 can perform cross-debugging. To say that GDB 4 targets a platform means that it can perform native or cross-debugging for it. To say that GDB 4 can host a given platform means that it can be built on it, but cannot necessarily debug native programs. GDB 4 can:
In addition, GDB 4 can use the symbol tables emitted by the compilers supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. (These symbol tables are in a format which almost nobody else uses.) Source for the manual Debugging with GDB and a reference card are included.
ae
ae works with GCC to produce more complete profiling information.
The binutils include ar, gprof, ld, nm,
ranlib, size, and strip. The GNU linker ld
is fast, and is the only linker which emits source-line numbered error
messages for multiply-defined symbols and undefined references.
Bison is an upwardly compatible replacement for the parser generator
yacc, with more features. Bison Manual and reference card
sources are included.
The entire suite of GNU software tools can be run on System V, replacing
COFF entirely. The GNU tools can operate on BSD object files with a
COFF header the System V kernel will accept. robotussin is
supplied for converting standard libraries to this format. However,
this workaround is becoming obsolete, as it is being replaced by BFD
(see "Project GNU Status Report" and "Contents of the Languages
Tape").
expect 4.5.2 alpha, and Tcl 6.7
DejaGnu is a framework for testing other programs. Its purpose is to provide a single front end for all tests. The flexibility and consistency of the DejaGnu framework make it easy to write tests for any program.
expect (which runs scripts to conduct dialogs with programs) and
Tcl (an embeddable tool command language) are both provided in this
package, since DejaGnu uses them and they are useful programs in their
own right.
dld 3.2.3
dld is a dynamic linker written by W. Wilson Ho. Linking your
program with the dld library allows you to dynamically load
object files into the running binary.
f2c 1993.04.28
f2c converts Fortran--77 source files into C or C++, which
can then be compiled with GCC.
flex 2.3.8
flex is a mostly-compatible replacement for the lex
scanner generator, written by Vern Paxson of the Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory. flex generates far more efficient scanners than
lex does.
Sources for the Flex Manual and reference card are included.
The GNU assembler (GAS) is a fairly portable, one pass assembler that is
almost twice as fast as Unix as and works for 32x32, 680x0,
80386, SPARC (Sun-4) & VAX.
GAWK is upwardly compatible with the System V Release 4 version of
awk. Source for the GAWK Manual comes with the software.
gdbm 1.5
The gdbm library is the GNU replacement for the traditional
dbm and ndbm libraries, which implement a database using
quick lookup by hashing. gdbm supports both styles but does not
need sparse database formats (unlike its Unix counterparts).
gmp 1.3.2
GNU MP (gmp) is a library for arbitrary precision arithmetic,
operating on signed integers and rational numbers. It has a rich set of
functions, all with a regular interface.
gperf 2.1
gperf is a "perfect" hash-table generation utility. There are
actually two implementations of gperf, one written in C and one
in C++. Both will produce hash functions in either C or C++.
indent 1.7
indent is the GNU-modified version of the freely-redistributable
BSD program of the same name. It formats C source according to GNU
coding standards by default, though the original default and other
formats are available as options.
p2c 1.20
p2c is a Pascal-to-C translator written by Dave Gillespie. It is
intended primarily for use on 32-bit machines, though porting it to
convert code to work on 16-bit machines may be possible.
perl 4.036
Larry Wall has written a fast interpreter named perl which
combines the features and capabilities of sed, awk,
sh, and C, as well as interfaces to all the system calls and many
C library routines.
The GNU regular expression library supports POSIX.2, except for internationalization features. It has been included in many GNU programs which use regex routines. Now it is finally available separately.
GNU Smalltalk is an interpreted object-oriented programming language system written in portable C. Features include an incremental garbage collector, a binary image save capability, the ability to invoke user-written C code and pass parameters to it, a GNU Emacs editing mode, optional byte-code compilation tracing and byte-code execution tracing, and automatically loaded per-user initialization files.
Superopt is a function sequence generator that uses an exhaustive generate-and-test approach to find the shortest instruction sequence for a given function. You provide the superoptimizer a function and a CPU to generate code for, and how many instructions you can accept. The GNU superoptimizer and its application in GCC is described in the ACM SIGPLAN PLDI'92 proceedings. Superopt supports: SPARC, m68000, m68020, m88000, IBM RS/6000, AMD 29000, Intel 80x86, & Pyramid.
Tile Forth is a 32-bit implementation of the Forth--83 standard written in C, thus allowing it to be easily moved between different computers (traditionally, Forth implementations are written in assembly to utilize the underlying architecture as optimally as possible, but this also makes them less portable).
gzip 1.0.7, and make 3.67
See "Contents of the Emacs Tape" for a full description of these programs.
This tape consists mostly of smaller utilities and miscellaneous applications not available on the other GNU tapes.
Autoconf produces shell scripts which automatically configure source
code packages. These scripts adapt the packages to many kinds of
Unix-like systems without manual user intervention. Autoconf creates a
script for a package from a template file which lists the operating
system features which the package can use, in the form of m4
macro calls. Many GNU programs now use Autoconf-generated configure
scripts.
The GNU shell, BASH (Bourne Again SHell), is compatible with
the Unix sh and offers many extensions found in csh and
ksh. BASH has job control, csh-style command history, and
command-line editing (with Emacs and vi modes built-in and the
ability to rebind keys) via the readline library.
bc 1.02
bc is an interactive algebraic language with arbitrary precision.
GNU bc was implemented from the POSIX 1003.2 draft standard, but
it has several extensions including multi-character variable names, an
else statement, and full Boolean expressions.
cpio 2.2
cpio is an alternative archive program with all the features of
SVR4 cpio, including support for the final POSIX 1003.1
ustar standard.
The Concurrent Version System, CVS, manages software revision and release control in a multi-developer, multi-directory, multi-group environment. It works best in conjunction with RCS versions 4 and above, but will parse older RCS formats with the loss of CVS's fancier features. See Berliner, Brian, "CVS-II: Parallelizing Software Development," Proceedings of the Winter 1990 USENIX Association Conference.
dc 0.2
dc is an RPN calculator. GNU bc does not require a
separate dc program to run. This version of dc will
eventually be merged with the bc package.
diffutils 2.3
GNU diff compares files showing line-by-line changes in several
flexible formats. It is much faster than the traditional Unix versions.
The "diffutils" distribution contains diff, diff3,
sdiff, and cmp.
doschk 1.1
This program is intended as a utility to help software developers ensure that their source file names are distinguishable on System V platforms with 14-character filenames and on MS-DOS with 11 character filenames.
elvis 1.7
elvis is a clone of the vi/ex Unix editor. It
supports nearly all of the vi/ex commands in both visual
and line mode. elvis runs under BSD, System V, Xenix, Minix,
MS-DOS, and Atari TOS, and should be easy to port to many other systems.
es 0.84
This is an extensible shell based on rc but with more features
including first class functions, lexical scope, an exception system, and
rich return values (i.e. functions can return values other than just
numbers). Like rc, it is great for both interactive use and for
scripting, particularly because its quoting rules are much less baroque
than the C or Bourne shells.
Fax is the freely-available MIT AI Lab fax spooling system, which provides Group 3 fax transmission and reception services for a networked Unix system. It requires a faxmodem which conforms to the new EIA-592 Asynchronous Facsimile DCE Control Standard, Service Class 2.
find 3.8
find is frequently used both interactively and in shell scripts
to find files which match certain criteria and perform arbitrary
operations on them. xargs and locate are also included.
finger 1.37
GNU Finger works on a wide variety of systems. For more information, see the "Project GNU Status Report."
The "fontutils" can create fonts for use with Ghostscript or TeX, starting with a scanned type image and converting the bitmaps to outlines. They also contain general conversion programs and other utilities.
Gnats (GNats: A Tracking System) is a bug-tracking system. It is based upon the paradigm of a central site or organization which receives problem reports and negotiates their resolution by electronic mail. Although it's been used primarily as a software bug-tracking system so far, it is sufficiently generalized so that it could be used for handling system administration issues, project management, or any number of other applications.
hello 1.3
acm is a LAN-oriented, multiplayer aerial combat simulation that runs under the X Window System. Players engage in air to air combat against one another using heat seeking missiles and cannons. Eventually we hope to turn this into a more general purpose flight simulator.
MandelSpawn is a parallel Mandelbrot program for the MIT X Window System. GNU Chess and GNU Shogi have text and X display interfaces (see "Project GNU Status Report"). NetHack is a display-oriented adventure game similar to Rogue. GnuGo plays the game of Go (Wei-Chi); it is not yet very sophisticated. GNU Shogi plays a Japanese game, similar to Chess, known as "Shogi". A major difference from Western Chess is that captured pieces can be returned into play.
The GNU hello program produces a familiar, friendly greeting. It
allows non-programmers to use a classic computer science tool which
would otherwise be unavailable to them. Because it is protected by the
GNU General Public License, users are free to share and change it.
Ghostscript is GNU's graphics language which is almost fully compatible with Postscript (see "Project GNU Status Report"). Ghostview provides an X11 user interface for the Ghostscript interpreter. Ghostview and Ghostscript function as two cooperating programs; Ghostview creates a viewing window and Ghostscript draws in it.
gnuplot 3.2
gnuplot is an interactive program for plotting mathematical
expressions and data. Curiously, the program was neither written nor
named for the GNU Project; the name is a coincidence.
See the entry on GNU Graphics in "Contents of the Experimental Tape" for information on a related program.
gptx 0.2
gptx is the GNU version of ptx, a permuted index
generator. Among other things, it produces readable "KWIC" (KeyWords
In Context) indexes without the need of nroff, and there is an
option to output TeX code.
grep/egrep/fgrep 2.0
The [ef]grep programs are GNU's versions of the Unix programs of
the same name. They are much faster than the traditional Unix versions.
groff 1.08 and mgm 1.07
groff is a document formatting system, which includes
implementations of troff, pic, eqn, tbl,
refer, the man, ms, and mm
macros, as well as drivers for Postscript, TeX dvi format, and
typewriter-like devices. Also included is a modified version of the
Berkeley me macros and an enhanced version of the X11
xditview previewer.
mgm is a macro package for groff. It is almost compatible
with the DWB mm macros and has several extensions.
less 177
less is a display paginator similar to more and pg
but with various features (such as the ability to scroll backwards)
which most pagers lack.
m4 1.0.3
GNU m4 is an implementation of the traditional Unix macro
processor. It is mostly SVR4 compatible, although it has some
extensions (for example, handling more than 9 positional parameters to
macros). m4 also has built-in functions for including files,
running shell commands, doing arithmetic, etc.
mtools is a set of public domain programs to allow Unix systems to read, write, and manipulate files on an MS-DOS file system (usually a diskette).
patch 2.0.12g8
patch is our version of Larry Wall's program to take
diff's output and apply those differences to an original file to
generate the modified version.
The Revision Control System, RCS, is used for version control and
management of software projects. When used with GNU diff, RCS
can handle binary files (executables, object files, 8-bit data, etc).
rc 1.4
rc is a shell that features a C-like syntax (much more so than
csh) and far cleaner quoting rules than the C or Bourne shells.
It's intended to be used interactively, but is great for writing scripts
as well.
recode 3.2.4
recode converts between character sets and usages. When exact
transliterations are not possible, it may get rid of offending
characters or fall back on approximations. It recognizes or produces
more than a dozen character sets and can convert each set to almost any
other one. recode pays special attention to superimposition of
diacritics, particularly for French.
screen 3.2b
screen is a terminal multiplexor that runs several independent
"screens" (ttys) on a single physical terminal. Each virtual terminal
emulates a DEC VT100 plus several ANSI X3.64 and ISO 2022 functions.
screen sessions can be detached and resumed later on a different
terminal.
sed 1.16
sed is a stream-oriented version of ed. It is used
copiously in shell scripts.
tar 1.11.2
GNU tar includes multivolume support, the ability to archive
sparse files, automatic archive compression/decompression, remote
archives, and special features that allow tar to be used for
incremental and full backups. Unfortunately GNU tar implements
an early draft of the POSIX 1003.1 ustar standard which is
different from the final standard. Adding support for the new changes
in a backward-compatible fashion is not trivial.
The GNU Termcap library is a drop-in replacement for libtermcap.a
on any system. It does not place an arbitrary limit on the size of
Termcap entries, unlike most other Termcap libraries. Included is
source for the Termcap Manual in Texinfo format.
time 1.4
time is used to report statistics (usually from a shell) about
the amount of user, system, and real time used by a process.
tput 1.0
tput is a portable way to allow shell scripts to use special
terminal capabilities. GNU tput uses the Termcap database,
rather than Terminfo as most implementations do.
This version of UUCP was written by Ian Lance Taylor, and is the
standard UUCP system for GNU. It currently supports the f,
g (in all window and packet sizes), G, t and
e protocols, as well a Zmodem protocol and two new bidirectional
protocols. If you have a Berkeley sockets library, it can make TCP
connections. If you have TLI libraries, it can make TLI connections.
wdiff 0.4
wdiff compares two files, finding which words have been deleted
or added to the first in order to obtain the second. We hope eventually
to integrate it, as well as some ideas from a similar program called
spiff, into future releases of GNU diff.
The "fileutils" manipulate files: chgrp, chmod,
chown, cp, dd, df, du,
install, ln, ls, mkdir, mkfifo,
mknod, mv, mvdir, rm, rmdir, and
touch.
The "shellutils" are small commands used on the command line or in
shell scripts: basename, date, dirname,
echo, env, expr, false, groups,
id, logname, nice, nohup, pathchk,
printenv, printf, sleep, stty, su,
tee, test, true, tty, uname,
who, whoami, and yes.
The "textutils" programs manipulate textual data: cat,
cksum, comm, csplit, cut, expand,
fold, head, join, nl, od,
paste, pr, sort, split, sum,
tac, tail, tr, unexpand, uniq, and
wc.
gzip 1.0.7, and make 3.67
See "Contents of the Emacs Tape" for a full description of these programs.
This tape includes software which is currently in beta test and is available for people who are feeling adventurous. Some of the software already has released versions on the distribution tapes. The contents of this tape are transient; as the programs become stable, they will replace older versions on other tapes. Please send bug reports to the address in the notes for each program on the tape. Note that Emacs 19, in beta test, is on the Emacs tape.
Version 2 of GCC is now reliable. In addition to the version 1 features, GCC 2 has instruction scheduling, loop unrolling, filling of delay slots, leaf function optimization, optimized multiplication by constants, a certain amount of common subexpression elimination (CSE) between basic blocks (though not all of the supported machine descriptions provide for scheduling or delay slots), and a feature for assigning attributes to instructions. Function-wide CSE has been written, but needs to be cleaned up before it can be installed. Position-independent code is supported on the 68k, i386, Hitachi Slt, Hitachi H8/300, Clipper, 88k, SPARC & SPARClite.
GCC 2 can also open-code most arithmetic on 64-bit values (type
long long int). It supports extended floating point (type
long double) on the 68k; other machines will follow. It can
generate code for most of the same machines as version 1, plus the
following: AMD 29000, Acorn RISC, DEC Alpha, Elxsi, HP-PA (700 & 800),
IBM RS/6000, IBM RT/PC, Intel 80386, Intel 960, Motorola 88000 & SPARC
(running Solaris 2). Version 2 can generate a.out, COFF, ELF & OSF-Rose
files when used with a suitable assembler. It can produce debugging
information in several formats: BSD stabs, COFF, ECOFF, ECOFF with stabs
symbols & DWARF.
Not all of the version 1 machine descriptions have been updated yet; some do not work, and others need work to take full advantage of instruction scheduling and delay slots. The old machine descriptions for the Alliant, Tahoe, and Spur (as well as a new port for the Tron) do not work, but are still included in the distribution in case someone wants to work on them.
Using the new configuration scheme for GCC, building a cross-compiler is as easy as building a compiler for the same target machine. Version 2 supports more general calling conventions: it can pass arguments "by reference" and can preallocate the space for stack arguments. GCC 2 on the SPARC uses the standard conventions for structure arguments and return values.
Version 2 of the compiler supports three languages: C, C++ and
Objective C; the source file name extension or a compiler option selects
the language. The front end support for Objective C was donated by
NeXT. The runtime support needed to run Objective C programs is now
distributed with GCC (this does not include any Objective C classes
aside from object).
GNU C has been extended to support nested functions, nonlocal gotos, and taking the address of a label.
Source for the manual, Using and Porting GNU CC, is included.
Since the C compiler has been unbundled in Solaris, this tape temporarily contains compiled binaries of GCC for Solaris systems in addition to the sources. In the future, Solaris binaries will be available on separate media.
Version 2 of the binutils have been completely rewritten to use the BFD library (see "Project GNU Status Report"). This version has been tested on only a few architectures including Sun-3 and Sun-4 running SunOS 4.1, and Sony News running NewsOS 3.
This version has not been ported to as many machines as the old binutils. Some features of the old versions are missing. We would appreciate clean, easy to integrate patches to make things run on other machines; especially welcome are fixes for what used to work in the old versions.
Version 2 of the GNU assembler has been rewritten to use the BFD library (see "Project GNU Status Report"). It supports these systems, though not all have been thoroughly tested: SPARC (SunOS 4 & Solaris 2), i386, m68k, MIPS (Ultrix, Irix), Hitachi H8/500 & VAX (VMS).
The library supports ANSI C-1989 and POSIX 1003.1-1990 and has most of the functions specified in POSIX 1003.2 draft 11.2. It is upward compatible with 4.4 BSD and includes many System V functions, plus GNU extensions.
Version 1.06 uses a standard GNU configure script and runs on
Sun-3 (SunOS 4.1), Sun-4 (SunOS 4.1 & Solaris 2), HP 9000/300 & Sony
NEWS 800 (4.3 BSD), MIPS DECstation (Ultrix 4), i386/i486 (System V,
SVR4, BSD, SCO 3.2 & SCO ODT 2.0) & Sequent Symmetry i386 (Dynix 3).
Source for the new GNU C Library Reference Manual is
included.
This is the GNU C++ library for GCC version 2 (see "Contents of Languages Tape" for more info regarding libg++). The latest version tries to configure itself automatically, thus working out of the box on many hosts. Recent changes include portability enhancements, some use of templates, and converting the iostream classes to use multiple inheritance.
GNU Graphics is a set of programs which produce plots from ASCII or
binary data. It supports output to Tektronix 4010, Postscript, and the
X Window System or compatible devices. Improvements in this version
include a revised manual (not yet printed on paper); new features in
graph, xplot and plot2ps; support for output in
ln03 and TekniCAD TDA file formats; a replacement for the spline
program; examples of shell scripts using graph and plot;
the addition of a statistics toolkit; and the use of configure
for installation.
Existing ports need retesting. Contact Rich Murphey,
Rich@rice.edu, if you can help test/port it to anything
beyond a SPARCstation.
Oleo is a spreadsheet program, that is better for you than the more expensive spreadsheets. It supports the X Window System and character-based terminals, and can output Embedded Postscript renditions of spreadsheets. Keybindings should be familiar to Emacs users and are configurable. Under X and in Postscript output, Oleo supports multiple, variable width fonts.
The two X11 tapes contain Version 11, Release 5 of the MIT X Window System. The first FSF tape contains all of the core software, documentation, and some contributed clients. We call this the "required" X tape since it is necessary for running X or running GNU Emacs under X. The second, "optional", FSF tape contains contributed libraries and other toolkits, the Andrew Use Interface System, games, and other programs.
The X11 Required tape also contains all fixes and patches released to date.
The Berkeley "Net2" release contains the second 4.3 BSD distribution and is newer than both 4.3BSD-Tahoe and 4.3BSD-Reno. It includes most of the BSD software system except for a few utilities, some parts of the kernel, and some library routines which your own C library is likely to provide (we have replacements on other tapes for many of the missing programs). This release also contains third party software including Kerberos and some GNU software.
We offer two VMS tapes. One has just the GNU Emacs editor. The other has the GNU C compiler, Bison (to compile GCC), (gas) (to assemble GCC's output), and some library and include files. We are not aware of a GDB port for VMS. Both VMS tapes have executables from which you can bootstrap, as the DEC VMS C compiler cannot compile GCC. Please do not ask us to devote effort to VMS support, because it is peripheral to the GNU Project.
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