February 2025 GNU spotlight with Amin Bandali: Sixteen new releases!

• binutils-2.44: GNU Binutils is a collection of tools for working with binary files. Perhaps the most notable are ld, a linker, and as, an assembler. Other tools include programs to display binary profiling information, list the strings in a binary file, and utilities for working with archives. The bfd library for working with executable and object formats is also included.
• dc-1.5.1: bc is an arbitrary precision numeric processing language. It includes an interactive environment for evaluating mathematical statements. Its syntax is similar to that of C, so basic usage is familiar. It also includes dc, a reverse-polish calculator.
• diffutils-3.11: GNU Diffutils is a package containing tools for finding the differences between files. The diff command is used to show how two files differ, while cmp shows the offsets and line numbers where they differ. diff3 allows you to compare three files. Finally, sdiff offers an interactive means to merge two files.
• emacs-30.1: GNU Emacs is an extensible and highly customizable text editor. It is based on an Emacs Lisp interpreter with extensions for text editing. Emacs has been extended in essentially all areas of computing, giving rise to a vast array of packages supporting, e.g., email, IRC and XMPP messaging, spreadsheets, remote server editing, and much more. Emacs includes extensive documentation on all aspects of the system, from basic editing to writing large Lisp programs. It has full Unicode support for nearly all human languages.
• g-golf-0.8.0: 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-16.2: 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.
• gettext-0.24: GNU Gettext is a package providing a framework for translating the textual output of programs into multiple languages. It provides translators with the means to create message catalogs, as well as an Emacs mode to work with them, and a runtime library to load translated messages from the catalogs. Nearly all GNU packages use Gettext.
• gtypist-2.10.1: GNU Typist is a universal typing tutor. It can be used to learn and practice touch-typing. Several tutorials are included; in addition to tutorials for the standard QWERTY layout, there are also tutorials for the alternative layouts Dvorak and Colemak, as well as for the numpad. Tutorials are primarily in English, however some in other languages are provided.
• inetutils-2.6: Inetutils is a collection of common network programs, such as an ftp client and server, a telnet client and server, and an rsh client and server.
• libtasn1-4.20.0: GNU libtasn1 is a library implementing the ASN.1 notation. It is used for transmitting machine-neutral encodings of data objects in computer networking, allowing for formal validation of data according to some specifications.
• mtools-4.0.48: GNU Mtools is a set of utilities for accessing MS-DOS disks from a GNU or Unix system. It supports long file names and multiple disk formats. It also supports some FAT-specific features such as volume labels and FAT-specific file attributes.
• octave-9.4.0: 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-20250222: 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.
• r-4.4.3: R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It provides a variety of statistical techniques, such as linear and nonlinear modeling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification and clustering. It also provides robust support for producing publication-quality data plots. A large amount of 3rd-party packages are available, greatly increasing its breadth and scope.
• shepherd-1.0.2: The GNU Shepherd is a daemon-managing daemon, meaning that it supervises the execution of system services, replacing similar functionality found in typical init systems. It provides dependency-handling through a convenient interface and is based on GNU Guile.
• which-2.23: 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.

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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.