Eleven new GNU releases in the last month (as of May 31, 2026):
- anastasis-0.7.0: GNU Anastasis is a free software protocol and implementation that allows users to securely deposit core secrets with a public set of escrow providers, and allows users to recover these secrets if their original copies are lost.
- g-golf-0.8.7: G-Golf (Gnome: (Guile Object Library for)) is a library for developing modern applications in Guile Scheme. It comprises a direct binding to the GObject Introspection API and higher-level functionality for importing Gnome libraries and making GObject classes (and methods) available in Guile's object-oriented programming system, GOOPS.
- gdb-17.2: GDB is the GNU debugger. With it, you can monitor what a program is doing while it runs or what it was doing just before a crash. It allows you to specify the runtime conditions, to define breakpoints, and to change how the program is running to try to fix bugs. It can be used to debug programs written in C, C++, Ada, Objective-C, Pascal, and more.
- gnupg-2.5.20: The GNU Privacy Guard is a complete implementation of the OpenPGP standard. It is used to encrypt and sign data and communication. It features powerful key management and the ability to access public key servers. It includes several libraries: libassuan (IPC between GnuPG components), libgpg-error (centralized GnuPG error values), and libskba (working with X.509 certificates and CMS data).
- gsasl-2.2.3: GNU SASL is an implementation of the Simple Authentication and Security Layer framework. On network servers such as IMAP or SMTP servers, SASL is used to handle client/server authentication. This package contains both a library and a command-line tool to access the library.
- less-702: GNU less is a pager, a program that allows you to view large amounts of text in page-sized chunks. Unlike traditional pagers, it allows both backwards and forwards movement through the document. It also does not have to read the entire input file before starting, so it starts faster than most text editors.
- libextractor-1.14: GNU libextractor is a library for extracting metadata from files. It supports a very large number of file formats, including audio files, document files, and archive files. Each file format is implemented as a plugin, so new formats can be added easily. The package also contains a command-line tool to extract metadata from a file and print the results.
- octave-11.2.0: GNU Octave is a high-level interpreted language that is specialized for numerical computations. It can be used for both linear and non-linear applications and it provides great support for visualizing results. Work may be performed both at the interactive command-line as well as via script files.
- parallel-20260522: GNU Parallel is a tool for executing shell jobs in parallel using one or more computers. Jobs can consist of single commands or of scripts and they are executed on lists of files, hosts, users or other items.
- which-2.25: The which program finds the location of executables in PATH, with a variety of options. It is an alternative to the shell
type built-in command.
- xorriso-1.5.8.pl02: GNU Xorriso is a tool for copying files to and from ISO 9660 Rock Ridge, a.k.a. Compact Disc File System, filesystems and it allows session-wise manipulation of them. It features a formatter and burner for CD, DVD and BD. It can operate on existing ISO images or it can create new ones. xorriso can then be used to copy files directly into or out of ISO files.
For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu.
To download: nearly all GNU software is available most reliably from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/. Optionally, you may find faster download speeds at a mirror located geographically closer to you by choosing from the list of mirrors published at https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html, or you may use https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html.
If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.
As always, please feel free to write to me, bandali@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
