gNewSense is a Linux distribution that was actively developed from 2006 to 2016. It is based on Debian, and development was initially sponsored from the Free Software Foundation. It was created with the goal of providing user-friendliness while excluding any proprietary (e.g. binary blobs) and other non-free software. The Free Software Foundation considered gNewSense to be composed entirely of free software.

The gNewSense project took a relatively strict stance against proprietary software. For example, any documentation that gave instructions on installing proprietary software was similarly excluded.

gNewSense's last release in 2016 fell out of support in 2018. DistroWatch classifies gNewSense as "discontinued".

The project was launched by Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley in 2006. gNewSense was originally based on Ubuntu. With the 1.0 release, the Free Software Foundation provided assistance to gNewSense.

With no releases in two years, on 8 August 2011, DistroWatch classified gNewSense as "dormant". By September 2012 DistroWatch had changed the status to "active" again, and on 6 August 2013, the first version directly based on Debian, gNewSense 3 "Parkes", was released.

There have been several indications that it may be restarted, including a website announcement in 2019, but the project has remained inactive, with no releases since 2016. DistroWatch returned it to "dormant" status again in 2019 and "discontinued" by 2022.

As of 13 April 2021^[update], the home page of the project's website displayed a blank page with a meme labelling the Free Software Foundation a cult. After a short time, the website then redirected to the home page of the PureOS website.

However, as of June 2021, it now redirects to the FSF's list of Free/Libre distros.