Nomenclature

1 Parabola

Parabola

The name of the project. It is commonly used as shorthand for the current Parabola operating system.

Parabola GNU/Linux

The former Parabola operating system; used a patched version of the "Linux" kernel.

Parabola GNU/Linux-libre

The current Parabola operating system; uses the "Linux-libre" kernel (a fully-libre fork of Linux that is maintained under official GNU auspices).

2 Arch

Arch Linux

The operating system that Parabola GNU/Linux-libre is a derivative of. The name is a misnomer; it is a GNU/Linux distribution, but lacks GNU in the name. Not to be rendered as "ArchLinux"; there's a space in there.

Arch

Acceptable shorthand for "Arch Linux".

3 Policies

(GNU) FSDG

The (GNU) Free System Distribution Guidelines is the set of guidelines that Parabola follows.

DFSG

Debian Free Software Guidelines, the set of guidelines that Debian follows. It is mostly equivalent, but is neither a superset nor a subset of the FSDG.

4 Packages

-libre

"X-libre" is a fork of "X" created for the purpose of complying with FSDG. Some packages with this kind of name are created by the Parabola project (such as "winetricks-libre"), but some (such as "Linux-libre") are maintained by others. See also: Creating -libre packages.

-dfsg

"X-dfsg" is a fork of "X" created for the purpose of complying with DFSG; these packages are developed/maintained by the Debian project. For example, isdnutils-dfsg is Debian's fork of isdnutils (known to Arch Linux users as "isdn4k-utils"). Because of the similarity between FSDG and DFSG, it also addresses Parabola's policy problems with isdnutils.¹

5 Footnotes

1. However, at the time of this writing, Parabola still lacks the isdnutils-dfsg package. This is because of technical issues with compiling the package on Parabola, we are trying to add it.