BASIC Interpreter for Linux

If you want to run natively in Linux BASIC you have several packages in Debian to choose from:

• brandy - compatible BBC Micro BASIC - works in a X11 graphical interface, aparently supports sound and graphics; Brandy is an interpreter for BBC BASIC V, the dialect of BASIC that Acorn Computers supplied with their ranges of desktop computers that use the ARM processor such as the Archimedes and Risc PC, and is still in use on these and compatibles.

BASIC V is a much extended version of BBC BASIC. This was the BASIC used on the 6502-based BBC Micro that Acorn made during the 1980s.

sudo apt-get install brandy

• bwbasic - byWater BASIC - text mode, claims to be ANSI compatible, has shells aware extensions, and claims to be capable of emulating/have good compatibility with several types of "old" BASIC dialects - including IBM BASICA, Microsoft BASIC and gwBASIC. bwBASIC can be configured to emulate features, commands, and functions available on different types of BASIC interpreters; bwBASIC implements one feature not available in previous BASIC interpreters: a shell command can be entered interactively at the bwBASIC prompt, and the interpreter will execute it under a command shell. For instance, the command "dir *.bas" can be entered in bwBASIC (under DOS, or "ls -l *.bas" under UNIX) and it will be executed as from the operating system command line. Uses line numbers like gwbasic.

Shell commands can also be given on numbered lines in a bwBASIC program, so that bwBASIC can be used as a shell programming language. bwBASIC's implementation of the RMDIR, CHDIR, MKDIR, NAME, KILL, ENVIRON, and ENVIRON$() commands and functions offer further shell-processing capabilities.

sudo apt-get install bwbasic

• FreeBASIC - has a qb dialect/mode that aims for perfect compatibility with a large subset of QuickBASIC. (The unsupported stuff is mostly low-level stuff related to the fact that QuickBASIC was a 16-bit real-mode system while FreeBASIC is a 32-bit protected mode system.)

FreeBASIC offers Linux binaries, but you'll only find it in your package repository if you actually meant "Debian-family distros" rather than "Debian" and are running Ubuntu or an Ubuntu derivative like Mint.

• sdlbasic - sdlBasic is a small, efficient and multiplatform BASIC interpreter for creating games using the power of SDL library. It was inspired by AMOS.