Re: GNUstep distro

[Liam Proven]

On 8 May 2013 21:53, Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Liam Proven <lproven@gmail.com> wrote:
> .....
>>
>> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>>
> .......<<< many interesting and valid points omitted >>>
>>
>> The closest seems to be the Étoilé project, but to put it mildly, they
>> really do not embrace the "release early, release often" mantra.
>> AFAICS they have never released so much as a demo version in around a
>> decade of work!
>>
>> Would anyone be interested in helping me to produce a Window Maker-
>> and GNUstep-based Ubuntu remix, at all? I am collating the tools but I
>> am not very experienced in this area...
>>
>
> Hi Liam (and Sebastian),
>
> Although i doubt i can give you any useful help whatsoever, if you do
> produce a Window Maker/GNUstep/Ubuntu remix, and you provide
> instructions for installing it on a partition of a GPT hard drive, i
> will certainly
> do that, and let you know of any bugs i find.

Hmm. That is an interesting problem. I do not own any drives larger
than 1GB, nor an Intel Macintosh, so I have no experience with GPT. If
I were to go ahead with an Ubuntu remix, then it would become a
question of whether Ubuntu supported this, which I don't know. I
presume that it is possible but I am not sure.

> That's my most important point, and if you do form a project of some
> sort, please put me on the mailing list.

Noted. :¬)

> Now, as a secondary point:
>
> I would like nothing better than to use a modern, capable system
> (meaning, multi-simultaneous-user, including standard tools such
> as emacs and ssh at least on the command line) with a well-supported
> gui that has a well-defined API for programming (graphical) applications.

Hmm. I am not sure I would regard Emacs as a standard app - it is not
a standard part of Ubuntu, although it is in the repos. I have been
experimenting recently with ErgoEmacs, which I like more than any
other Linux version I have seen. I could include that, I suppose, but
it does not integrate with GNUstep or Window Maker, not AFAIK.


> A GNUstep-based system should fit the bill, because at the least it
> has a good design
> and a well-defined API.  But on ubuntu, at least, support for GNUstep
> is at best an after thought (as your message points out).

Well, quite.

> What would be useful would be to pop in a cd, install an os on some partition,
> and have it run GNUstep, ready to use, ready to program, out of the box.

I agree.

> Sebastian --- thanks for your remarks also, regarding OpenBSD.
>
> I was interested in that at one time, and i'd still be interested in trying
> it out, but iirc, there's some issue with partitioning.  I have a system
> alrleady, partitioned with GPT (so that the disk can be large and have
> many, many primary partitions, and can be managed with grub2).  If
> it is possible to put OpenBSD on a partition on a disk that is shared
> with various versions of ubuntu and debian, then i would go for it, at
> least to try it out.  But i think there may be some issue with the *BSD
> using a different scheme for partitioning, and maybe a non-grub bootloader
> also.

Indeed so. All the BSDs have /extremely/ poor support for non-BSD disk
partitioning, and in my discussions with BSD users and advocates, they
are unable to see that this is not only a problem but a serious
problem which severely hinders their uptake.

Meantime, I can only suggest running them inside a VM - this works
very well these days. VirtualBox is FOSS and runs well on Linux,
Windows and Mac OS X.

> As a final point, which i don't want to say too much about, because
> the point of this list is GNUstep ---- lots of people have noticed this lack
> of a gui/lack of a well-defined api in the free world, and have addressed
> it in various ways.  For example, there's Haiku and Syllable and AROS.
> And even in the ubuntu-derivative world ubuntu would like to have an api,
> and there are projects such as ElementaryOS, which is what i'm using now.
> So there's a need, and people are groping towards a solution, but imvho
> a GNUstep-focused distro (whether linux or *BSD or other) could really
> help fill it.

I think it is probably too little, too late, to be honest.
Fragmentation of APIs and so on in the Unix world is one of its
endemic problems and it is getting worse, not better. The answer, if
there is one at all, probably lies in abstraction, e.g. via the JVM,
whether running Java or something else.

> (I think that a combinatorial explosion of different OS base layers,
> with different default packages and even packaging systems, will
> have more trouble in filling the need.)

Indeed so.

> My 2 cents only!
>
> And not wanting to second guess all those working hard in the field!

:¬)

I think we are in broad agreement here.


--
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