Re: elementary OS

[Liam Proven]

On 10 February 2014 21:30, Gerold Rupprecht <geroldr@bluewin.ch> wrote:
> a
> fruitful endeavor to broaden the appeal of Etoilé?

The mantra of open source is: release early, release often.

This does not mean "dump some source files on an FTP server somewhere
and hope that a passer-by is interested."

It means binaries.

If you are talking about part of an OS, then that means that just bare
binaries are useless. This is part of an OS. Most people are not
capable of building an OS. You need your code to be accessible to most
people.

So that means building and releasing an OS image, plus packages for
others to build their own.

There is little use in targeting obscure minority OSes such as *BSD.

_The_  FOSS OS is Linux. _The_ desktop Linux is the Debian/Ubuntu family.

(OpenSUSE is a bloated mess and the company is in bed with Microsoft.
Fedora is a rolling alpha-test. RHEL is too expensive, CentOS is too
conservative. Gentoo is for the sort of person who thinks liquid
nitrogen is a viable cooling method. Slackware is for people who don't
like GUIs and modern OSes. Debian and Ubuntu are the only really
serious free modern desktop OS.)

There needs to be monthly (at least) snapshots of GS that can be
installed on Ubuntu, or Debian, or preferably both.

The complete GNUstep desktop environment needs to be installable with
a single command, from a single metapackage, that gives a new desktop
entry on the login screen, with a complete environment with all the
user tools - not the development tools, that's something separate.

That means a config with Window Maker preconfigured to hide its dock,
with GWorkspace loaded by default, with some essential applets
preloaded too: a system tray, a network monitor, a volume control,
etc.

This implies that some default choices are made as to the missing apps
that GNUstep does /not/ supply: a web browser at the bare minimum.
Perhaps a GS wrapper around one of the existing FOSS browsers, or
perhaps a Firefox add-in to make it integrate with the GS desktop, as
Ubuntu does with Firefox on its Unity desktop. A web browser is
*essential* - without one, you can't even look up what and how to add
the remaining missing components.

Some way of accessing the OS' own applications menu. A dockapp would be fine.

Some way of accessing the window manager's own desktop menu would be a big help.

Some way of adding new apps to the dock is also essential.

A second metapackage would install the development tools: GORM and
whatnot. (I don't know, I don't care personally; I am not a programmer
and so I have no interest in them.)

This is more important than supporting OSes with a few thousand total
installed users, I'm afraid.

I am currently working on a roundup of unofficial Ubuntu remixes. I
have found at least 5 which customise the GNOME 3 desktop alone.
(Mint, Deepin, Pinguy, Zorin, Elementary; there was also PearOS but it
has just this month been discontinued.)

5 projects just to try to replace GNOME Shell with something usable
and pleasant. Plus there are unofficial variants of Xfce (e.g.
WattOS), LXDE (e.g. LXLE), Elementary (e.g. Bodhi), OpenBox (e.g.
Crunchbang) - although in several cases there are /already/ "official"
variants with some of these desktops.

There is a *huge* amount of interest in alternative Linux desktops out
there at the moment. Lots of people are working on them, lots of
distros and meta-distros are trying to do their own thing with the top
6 desktops.

That top 6 desktops are, for reference:
* GNOME 3 (+ variants/forks e.g. Cinnamon, GNOME Classic, Consort)
* Unity (also runs on Arch & Fedora, not just Ubuntu)
* KDE
* Xfce
* LXDE
* Maté (fork of GNOME 2)

There are others too, such as Enlightenment and Razor-Qt (currently
looking like it will merge with LXDE).

GNUstep should be in that list.

But it isn't, because nobody has heard of it, because its own website says:

"GNUstep is not...

...a desktop

The GNUstep project supplies several official default applications,
such as a Workspace Manager and a Preferences application, but GNUstep
project itself is not a desktop project."

YES IT IS. It has a window manager, a desktop manager, a suite of
productivity apps and accessories. That is what a Linux desktop *is*!

And if you want users and developers, you have to get out there and
play with the others, or you will die.





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