Re: Simply GNUstep Feedback

[cehardin]

Have anyone successfully built GNUstep in /   (as opposed to 
/opt/GNUstep, /usr/GNUstep, etc)?  I want to do this but want to see 
what problems people have had before hand.


Chad

> Howdy.
>
> I grabbed your "Simply GNUstep" ISO.  Let me first state that for 
> awhile now I have thought a GNUstep-based distribution would be nice.
>
> However, I have a slight problem or two with the way you're doing it.  
> So if I may, I'd like to give you some constructive criticism.
>
> Mistake number one: vesafb.  I'm lucky enough to own an Athlon, but 
> vesafb is intolerably slow on many systems.  If I were to run it on the 
> Celeron down the hall, I don't think it'd be too zippy.  I know this 
> from experience, having written some framebuffer code.
>
> The framebuffer in general is also slow for X, as the "fbdev" module 
> for XFree86 is unaccelerated for all video cards.  But I'm sure I don't 
> have to tell you this.
>
> My second grievance: you put GNUstep in /opt/GNUstep.  In my humble 
> opinion, if one is truly dedicated to GNUstep as you say you are, they 
> would install it to / instead.  You cite Mac OS X as an inspiration, so 
> witness the fact that in OS X, there is a /System, and not 
> /opt/MacOS/System, or even /MacOS/System.  Therefore I think GNUstep 
> should be installed in not /opt/GNUstep, not /GNUstep, but right at the 
> root level.
>
> I'll assume also that you are at some point going to have a login 
> system, so I'll keep quiet about the fact that everyone is root for 
> now.  :-)  A few of the icons in the dock are broken (ENOENT upon 
> doubleclick).  But I'll assume you're aware of that one too.
>
> And lastly, something that's probably too late to change now: I 
> wouldn't have used Linux as a base.  Why?  Because it's sloppy and 
> disorganized, with a million and one decentralized packages to keep 
> tabs on.  I would have taken an existing base, notably OpenBSD.  Why 
> OpenBSD?  Because it's light, it's simple, it's complete, it's free, 
> and it's all in one piece.  You could have a working, lightweight 
> "GNUstep system" without even editing the default install very much.  
> It could save you a lot of work.  And I do mean a lot.
>
> Overall, though, very cool.  One last question, though.  Where's the 
> source?
>
> Cheers,
> Andy