Re: NeXT GNU Homage Project Work

[Riccardo Mottola]

Liam Proven wrote:
> While it is a good thing that there are OSes that have a working
> current version of the GNUstep environment, I submit that,
> increasingly, Linux means the Debian family, and for most people,
> specifically Ubuntu. It is the easiest to install, the easiest to
> update, the most rich and complete and widely-supported free OS that
> exists.

It is widely used. The other statements I dissent about.
Debian has really questionable "ease of install" when it comes to 
firmware and drivers, for example.
Systemd is a pain you get and many other things I do need to "tailor" 
before I have a usable system debian and it is not so easy to update 
either if you don't want to break things.
On OpenBSD I just install the system major dependencies are a breeze and 
work my way up to GNUstep without pain. But that is personal preference.

> *That*  is what should be the #1 priority to support well with GNUstep.

We do support Debian and Ubuntu very well. I have GNUstep on Raspbian 
working quite fine.
We are not directly responsible for the quality of packages supplied, so 
the two things need to be separated.

We also do work well on SuSE and those packages appear to be far more 
complete.

During the Dublin meeting, both Debian and SuSE packages were discussed 
and Ivan is working to get us better custom DEB packages. This doesn't 
mean directly that "official" packages will benefit, we would need a DD 
for a good sponsor for that.

> The answer to the problem "I can't install GNUstep on Ubuntu or
> Debian" is_not_  "install FreeBSD instead". It's not "install
> $ANY_OTHER_OS".

I just mentioned that there are other OS and that they are of high 
quality, have better out-of-the-box GNUstep experience and that they are 
easy or even easier to maintain. That's all.

Riccardo