Re: GNUstep distro

[Liam Proven]

On 9 May 2013 08:27, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo.mottola@libero.it> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> On 05/08/13 17:32, Liam Proven wrote:
>>
>> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>>
>> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>
> An official, up-to-date, "GNUstep only" distro doesn't exist.

I thought as much.

> There are
> several Linux and BSD distributions which provide  packages of GNUstep apps,
> of varying quality and breadth.

[Nod]

> Richard Stonehouse provides a bootable VM
> image which is quite nice.

I had not heard of this. I have downloaded it now. It will not import
into VirtualBox, nor can VBox mount its hard disk on its own.


> OpenBSD should be quite decent, since Sebastiaa usually works closely with
> GNustep to make sure apps work and also many GAP apps are there.
> FreeBSD, NetBSD should be decent too.
> Linux should be fine with Gentoo.
>
> Saldy (me, as a long long time Debian user), the official Debian packages
> are among the worst. Many reasons. It is going to improve with the next
> cycle i think, Yavor did some good work there.
>
> There is one last way: Use unofficial packages. Philippe provides
> Debian/Ubuntu packages here that are even tracking unstable. Richard makes
> his RPM packages public too.

You keep mentioning people's (?) given names without surnames or any
way for me to find the work that you are referring to...?

>> Pretty much all the tools to create one are in the Debian
>> repositories, and thus also in Ubuntu. By "all the tools", I mean a
>> window manager, text editor, terminal, image viewer, calculator, email
>> client, media player, etc. The only items missing are the big
>> productivity apps - an office suite, web browser and chat client.
>> Fortunately those are easily obtained, although of course they do not
>> share the look & feel.
>
> Right so.
>
>
>> E.g., menu generation in Window Maker is broken, although there is a
>> workaround; the wdm desktop manager is unable to shutdown or reboot
>> the machine; and the FSviewer file manager app is missing, although
>> its icon set is still present.
>
> Menu entries for WindowMaker in debian work, I get an entry for each
> installed GS app!

Not for me, they don't, and it is a documented problem. Perhaps you
have already applied the fix:

http://administratosphere.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/the-current-state-of-window-maker/


> YOu shold not need FSViewer, but use GWorkspace instead (Debian ships like a
> 2-year old version, pretti ridiculous,  ith as stability and crash problems,
> but they will update I hope)

It is indeed very unstable.

I have found, as I said, that GWorkSpace seemed to support very little
customisation - not enough to create a functional desktop. As I
already said, I could not add apps to the Dock, nor find any way to
customise its menu. Without being able to launch new apps - not just
GNUstep apps, but any Linux apps - it is not really possible to build
a complete, functional desktop.

>> I have also found that the GWorkSpace app seems to conflict with
>> Window Maker itself - you get two Docks, for instance, one positioned
>> top-left in NeXT style and one centred, Mac OS X style. However, I
>> can't find how to add icons to the GWorkSpace dock, nor how to
>> customise its menus, so I have been more or less forced to base my
>> exploratory efforts around Window Maker, which offers quite good
>> customisability.
>
> You can customize GWorkspace. You can disable the Desktop completely
> (Tools->Show Desktop) or disable the dock (Preferences->Desktop->General)
>
> I do hide and show the destkop regulary it is quick. When you hide the
> desktop "windowmaker" takes the control over again with its menu. Else, you
> work in GWorkspace and so to run application you need to go to your
> application folder or use its Dock, Fiend, Tabbed Shelf and other means.

Thank you for this info - it's useful. I still suspect that GWorkspace
will get in the way too much to be helpful, but I will experiment
further.

--
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