GNU Software Releases: December 2023 – a2ps, GDB & More

February 17, 2026 Rachel Kim – Technology Editor Technology

A suite of new and updated GNU software packages were released in late December and early January, offering improvements to tools for printing, debugging, network administration, and medical software, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced this week.

Among the updates is GNU a2ps, version 4.15.8, which converts a wide range of file types into PostScript format for printing. According to the FSF, a2ps is designed to “delegate files to external handlers, such as Groff and Gzip,” streamlining the process of preparing diverse documents for output. The software’s slogan, “Do The Right Thing,” reflects its aim to simplify complex PostScript manipulations even for novice users.

Also included in the release cycle is GDB, the GNU debugger, now at version 17.1. GDB allows developers to monitor program execution, identify crashes, and modify runtime conditions to resolve bugs. It supports multiple programming languages, including C, C++, Ada, and Objective-C.

For software developers utilizing version control systems, GNU released git-merge-changelog version 1.0. This tool is designed to prevent conflict markers from appearing in ChangeLog files during operations like merging branches or applying patches.

Significant updates were also made to the GNU Health project, with both the client (version 5.0.1) and control (version 5.0.2) components receiving new releases. GNU Health is a free and open-source medical software system supporting electronic medical records, health information systems, and hospital management. The software has been adopted by organizations including the United Nations University and various hospitals and health ministries globally.

Rounding out the releases are updates to GNUnet (0.26.2), a framework for secure peer-to-peer networking; GnuPG (2.5.16), the GNU Privacy Guard for data encryption and signing; Inetutils (2.7), a collection of network programs; Mailutils (3.21), a suite of email management tools; Ncurses (6.6), a library for terminal-independent text display; Parallel (20251222), a tool for parallel shell job execution; Radius (1.7), a remote user authentication server; Shepherd (1.0.9), a daemon manager; Taler (1.3), a privacy-focused payment system; Tramp (2.8.1), also related to the Taler payment system; and Wget2 (2.2.1), a non-interactive file downloader.

The FSF encourages those interested in contributing to GNU projects to visit https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint for information on available roles and assistance opportunities.