Re: GNUstep distro

[Dan Hitt]

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.

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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.)

My 2 cents only!

And not wanting to second guess all those working hard in the field!

dan