TuxGuitar is a free, open source tablature

Tablature

Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....

 editor, which includes basic features such as tablature editing, score editing, triplet support and the ability to import and export Guitar Pro

Guitar Pro

Guitar Pro is a multitrack editor of guitar and bass tablature and musical scores, possessing a built-in MIDI-editor, a plotter of chords, a player, a metronome and other tools for guitarists and musicians...

 gp3, gp4, and gp5 files. In addition, TuxGuitar can function as a basic MIDI editor using the tablature or staff interface, and as of the 1.0 release, can import and export MIDI files. TuxGuitar's mascot and namesake is Tux

Tux

Tux is a penguin character and the official mascot of the Linux kernel. Originally created as an entry to a Linux logo competition, Tux is the most commonly used icon for Linux, although different Linux distributions depict Tux in various styles. In video games featuring the character, female...

, the penguin mascot of many games and programs originally designed for Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

.
It is written using the Java programming language

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, with the GUI toolkits SWT

Standard Widget Toolkit

The Standard Widget Toolkit is a graphical widget toolkit for use with the Java platform. It was originally developed by IBM and is now maintained by the Eclipse Foundation in tandem with the Eclipse IDE...

 and GTK.
Released under version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License

GNU Lesser General Public License

The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...

, TuxGuitar is free and open source software

Free and open source software

Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...

.

As of October 2011, the project seems to have been abandoned. Some enthusiasts have since forked the project on SourceForge

SourceForge

SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...

.

Skins

TuxGuitar offers a set of three default skins

Skin (computing)

In computing, a skin is a custom graphical appearance achieved by the use of a graphical user interface that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users....

 that its users can choose from. These are:

Image	Name	Author	First appeared in	Description
	Lavender	Sascha	v0.1	Simple, elegant theme with lavender color.
	Blue serious	Licnep	v0.1	A more serious theme, where blue dominates.
	Ersplus	Ersplus	v0.9	Default tuxguitar theme.

TuxGuitar also supports custom skins. The default skin for version 1.0 is Lavender.

Supported effects

Note effects
Dead notes
Accentuated notes
Harmonics
Dynamics
Grace notes Grace Notes Grace Notes is a novel by Bernard MacLaverty, first published in 1997.-Plot summary:The book centers around the postpartum depression of its female protagonist, Catherine McKenna, a Northern Irish music teacher and composer living in Scotland...
Tremolo picking
Slurs
Hammer-ons and pull-offs
Slides
Track effects
Multiple Tracks
Multiple Voices
Repeats
Alter. Endings
Custom Number of and Tuning for a Track's strings
Track Names
Lyrics Lyrics Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
Text
Chords Chord (music) A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
Symbols

Supported file formats

File format	Loading	Exporting
TuxGuitar (.tg)
Guitar Pro Guitar Pro Guitar Pro is a multitrack editor of guitar and bass tablature and musical scores, possessing a built-in MIDI-editor, a plotter of chords, a player, a metronome and other tools for guitarists and musicians...  (.gtp)
Guitar Pro 3 (.gp3)
Guitar Pro 4 (.gp4)
Guitar Pro 5 (.gp5)
Guitar Pro 6 (.gp6)
Power Tab (.ptb)
Tabledit (.tef)
GNU LilyPond GNU LilyPond GNU LilyPond is a computer program for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand....  (.ly)
MIDI (.mid)
ASCII tab ASCII tab ASCII tab is a text file format used for writing guitar, bass guitar and drum tabs using plain ASCII numbers, letters and symbols. It is the only widespread file format for representing tab, and is extensively used for disseminating tab via the Internet....  (.txt)

Reception

As of August 2009, TuxGuitar received 4.5/5 stars in the CNET

CNET

CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...

 user ratings. And as of March 2010, TuxGuitar received 3.1/5 stars in the Softpedia

Softpedia

Softpedia is an Internet web site that indexes information and provides software downloads. The site also covers major technology, science, health, and entertainment news from both external and in-house sources and provides software and game reviews. , it is one of the top 500 websites according to...

 user ratings. 83% of the 458 users that had rated TuxGuitar in the SourceForge

SourceForge

SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...

 user ratings recommended it. Reviewers at SoftForge gave version 1.0 of TuxGuitar 5/5 stars calling "easy to use" with "advanced functions."