Re: GNUstep distro

[Liam Proven]

On 8 May 2013 21:36, Sebastian Reitenbach <sebastia@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 22:11 CEST, Liam Proven <lproven@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 8 May 2013 18:41, Sebastian Reitenbach <sebastia@l00-bugdead-prods.de> 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 17:32 CEST, Liam Proven <lproven@gmail.com> 
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>> >>
>> >> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>> >>
>> >> I have been experimenting with Window Maker and many of the GNUstep
>> >> apps recently, but my efforts to find a desktop distro based around
>> >> this have been in vain. I am aware of Window Maker Live and Simply
>> >> GNUstep, but both are now very dated indeed.
>> >
>> > If you don't mind running BSD, there is OpenBSD ;)
>>
>> It's not that I /mind/ running BSD,  but the last couple of times I
>> tried FreeBSD -- generally regarded as easier, friendlier & more
>> compatible than OpenBSD -- I couldn't even get it to open a TCP/IP
>> connection or install X.11, let alone anything else.
>
> The last times I tried Free or NetBSD, I ended up in horrible adventures ;)

Yes, me too. Or at least that's one way of putting it!

> But maybe I'm just too used to the ease of use and the sane defaults in
> OpenBSD ;)
>
> X is included in the base system, and usually "just works".
> I own a lot of machines, and on none of them, I have to tweak Xorg.conf
> Also with networking, you just configure it via installing, and you are done.

Just for the record...

I used "install53.iso" to get OpenBSD running in a VirtualBox VM. It
was surprisingly trouble-free and as promised did indeed configure
X.11, networking and fvwm straight off the ISO. To my surprise, it was
much more helpful and cooperative than FreeBSD.

Fvwm was a bit of a shock, though. It felt like going back to about 1993. O_o

I then followed your instructions to add the gnustep-desktop packages.
It took 3 or 4 retries to fetch them all; I just kept reissuing the
command until it completed successfully.

I also installed Firefox -- guessing the package name -- to copy &
paste your login script, as I did not want to retype the whole thing.
There are no VirtualBox guest additions for OpenBSD so I could not cut
& paste them from the host machine.

Sadly, Window Maker gets into severe problems as soon as it's run,
with the main menu flickering madly as it is continually redrawn. It
is not possible to pick anything off the menus.

--
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884