Re: Problems with compiling GNUstep

[Nicola Pero]

Hi Philippe,

the procedure is:

* remove your old gnustep installation.  Something like

  mv /usr/GNUstep /usr/GNUstep.old

 should be Ok.

* install ffcall.

* install gnustep-make (configure, compile, install) 1.0.1

* run . /usr/GNUstep/System/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh

* install gnustep-objc (NO configure, compile, install) 1.0.1

at this point, if your original libobjc thread system is different from
the gnustep-objc thread system, you need to reconfigure and recompile
gnustep-make.  If you are using linux and don't know what that means, then
you don't need to reconfigure it.  This whole gnustep-objc stuff is
temporarily; with the newer compiler series (GCC 3.x) we will hopefully
use the libobjc which comes with the compiler, so that the whole
gnustep-objc package will be dropped and things will be easier.  We are
not very far from that - still a bug in the GCC 3.x C compiler to fix and
then we should be able to compile all gnustep using that.

* install gnustep-base (configure, compile, install) 1.0.1

[optional * install gnustep-guile (configure, compile, install) 1.0.1]

[optional * install jigs (compile, install) 1.4.0]

* install gnustep-gui (configure, compile, install) from daily snapshot

* install gnustep-xgps (configure, compile, install) from daily snapshot


Now, your new gnustep system is ready.
You need to `make distclean' in all your applications, and recompile them.

If you get problems, please let us know - but make sure you have followed
strictly the outlined procedure first.


> All this is very annoying - esp. because I think the GNUstep installation 
> process has become much more painful than it was a few months ago... 

Well - this is actually one of the areas where there has been a huge
improvement in the past six months.  If you have problems, it is because
such a huge redesign and rearrangement of code necessarily 
1. forces you to change your habits, which is tiresome and annoying
2. introduces new problems because any big change - no matter how good -
introduces new problems.

But there are really so many advantages in the new stuff.

1. It is much easier to maintain.

2. It is now possible to easily package the core packages into RPMs and
DEBs or any other packaging system.

3. Once you have installed the system, you can update the components
independently.

4. The backend is now a dynamically loaded bundle - now tell me if this
isn't cool.  You can compile an app, and switch backend just by changing a
user default (GSBackend==libgnustep-xgps or GSBackend=libgnustep-xdps),
without having to recompile the app!  Because of this, the library combo
is now easier, gnu-gnu-gnu instead of gnu-gnu-gnu-xpgs.  Before you had to
compile even non-gui libraries twice - for the two different backends.