GNU variants

GNU variants are operating systems based upon the GNU operating system (namely those whose components include the GNU C library and system libraries; application software like GNU coreutils and bash; sometimes also the Hurd kernel, the Guix package manager, etc.). According to the GNU Project, these also include most operating systems using the Linux kernel and a few others using BSD-based kernels.

GNU variants use GNU user space software in combination with a kernel. The kernel of an operating system is the portion of the operating system that controls the system hardware and provides basic services to other parts of the operating system. The GNU kernel is the GNU Hurd; the Linux kernel and other kernels are also used in GNU variants.

GNU users usually obtain their operating system by downloading GNU distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices (for example, LibreCMC) and personal computers (for example, Debian GNU/Hurd) to powerful supercomputers (for example, Rocks Cluster Distribution).