The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
Chapter 4 - Software available in the Debian system

4.1 What types of applications and development software are available for Debian GNU/Linux?

Like most Linux distributions, Debian GNU/Linux provides:

• the major GNU applications for software development, file manipulation, and text processing, including gcc, g++, make, texinfo, Emacs, the Bash shell and numerous upgraded Unix utilities,

• Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk and various related programs, modules and libraries for each of them,

• TeX (LaTeX) and Lyx, dvips, Ghostscript,

• the X Window System, which provides a networked graphical user interface for Linux, and countless X applications including GNOME and KDE as well as the GIMP GNU Image Manipulation Program,

• a full suite of networking applications, including servers for Internet protocols such as HTTP (WWW), FTP, NNTP (news), SMTP and POP (mail) and name server; relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL; also provided are web browsers including the various Mozilla producs,

• a complete set of office applications, including the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, Gnumeric and other spreadsheets, WYSIWYG editors, calendars.

More than 15180 packages, ranging from news servers and readers to sound support, FAX programs, database and spreadsheet programs, image processing programs, communications, net, and mail utilities, Web servers, and even ham-radio programs are included in the distribution. Another 450 software suites are available as Debian packages, but are not formally part of Debian due to license restrictions.