Re: Starting GNUstep (Debian)

[Alex Perez]

Patrix wrote:

> This is a good point and, imho, one of the reasons GNOME and KDE are
> more widely used - I remember using KDE 0.0.2 or whatever early
> version they had, and I could _use_ it. It had a window manager, a
> panel and a file manager that crashed every time I dragged something
> to the trash. But I could use it.

G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E.
G N U S T E P   I S   N O T  A  D E S K T O P   E N V I R O N M E N T

Seriously, it's not. There are several projects to *USE* GNUstep in a 
gnustep-centric development environment, but what you are doing is akin 
to calling 'kdelibs' a "Desktop Environment". You are comparing apples 
to oranges, and not even realizing it.

> GNUstep however always maintained they were implementing the OpenStep
> api and not a desktop environment, and for a long while didn't have a
> usable environment (except for GNUMail.app). So of course, users like
> me would see this and say - hm? There's nothing to use here and move
> on to gnome or kde, even though I liked the elegance of the *step gui
> and api.
GNUMail is not an "environment" so I don't see your point. Yes it's true 
that we maintain that GNUstep is not a desktop environment because IT IS 
NOT. There are many, many, many things that a real desktop environment 
needs to provide which GNUstep does not, will not, and should not provide.
> Even today, with GWorkspace and all those cool applications, they
> still don't feel like they're integrated together and make sense
> together - It's still just a collection of apps that somewhat work
> together. And the project has been going on for 10 years!
Unless you can provide constructive criticism as to how you think they 
should better integrate, that will never change. This statement relates 
to your following sentence....

> I don't pretend to have the solution though ;) GNOME's constant
> release cycle seems good - one release every 6 months no matter what
> (whch means features that can't be complete for the release will have
> to wait for the next release). I suppose there needs to be a team (is
> there one already?) actively steering the desktop environment portion
> of it, interacting with the gnustep developpers, dedicated to making
> something usable out of it. An organized team.
No, because GNUstep is not a desktop environment. GINADE.
> Wouldn't that be great? Hopefully it's not too late... Maybe I'm just
> dreaming cause I'm graduating from software engineering and my head is
> full of project development theory?
>
> As for starting in GDM, there is no "GNUstep" environemtn in itself. I
> have built myself a gnustep.desktop (I just copied and modified
> kde.desktop) I put in the gdm Sessions/ directory along with my kde
> and gnome sessions, and a gnustep-session script started by the Exec=
> line in gnustep.desktop(kinda like gnome-session) that starts:
That shouldn't be an option, because GNUstep is not a desktop 
environment. WindowMaker should be started, and then from there the 
various GNUstep apps should be started.
> wmaker &
> openapp GWorkspace.app
>
> So the session ends when I quit GWorkspace.
lots of people do this in their personal setups.
> Patrix.
>
> Gisli Ottarsson <gisli.ottarsson@mscsoftware.com> wrote in message 
> news:<mailman.403.1093629124.1998.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>...
>
> > It was pointed out to me that unlike KDE and GNOME, GNUstep is not a
> > desktop environment.  I question the value of such a distinction. 
The fact that you question it merely means you don't know what you're 
talking about. Would you call "Cocoa" a desktop environment? No, because 
that's simply not what it is. GNUstep is akin to Cocoa's Foundation and 
AppKit.

> > There may be some nuances that make GNUstep unlike KDE/GNOME, but I
> > think it would be more helpful to my fellow mortals if GNUstep were
> > simply positioned as an alternative to KDE and GNOME and showed up as a
> > choice in gdm (but now I am repeating myself).

GNUstep is not a desktop environment. If you want to help start a 
GNUstep desktop environment, I am sure I would be interested as would 
numerous others.