Re: GNUstep installation - a 'Newbie' question

[Chris B. Vetter]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 00:19:39 +0200 (Europe/Berlin)
Dirk Theisen <d.theisen@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi, Chris!
> >  # cd /usr/ports/devel/gnustep
> >  # make install clean
> >> It should also configure the system to run the demons necessary and
> >> source GNUstep.sh in sh and csh compatible shells.
> > Yep, ports do that, except for adding the sourcing of GNUstep.sh on
> > a per user level.
> This sounds good. Does it install the GNUstep sources so I can just 
> 'cvs update' those to update to the most recent cvs version and 
> recompile? This is something I would like. 

No, the ports do not use GNUstep's CVS, the use the TAR balls.

> Unfortunately, as a GNUstep newbie, I do not know about which systems 
> support GNUstep with packages and which require more work to get it 
> going. 

Looking through the GNUstep ports (I use CVS instead) you can get a
working GNUstep installation by just running 'make install clean'.

There are some options you can set in /etc/make.conf to configure
GNUstep in more detail, like "use -back-art instead of the default
-back".

You can go to http://www.freshports.org/search.php and take a look
what's available.

Set the drop down boxes to search for "Port Name" "containing" "gnustep"
and you will get about 10 ports. To take a closer look at each port,
click their respective "CVSWeb" link.

> In contrast to the others contributed to this thread, I have no 
> particular preference for an open source *nix. I just want one that 
> runs on my hardware and that GNUstep best and is easy to install and 
> set up. 

That would be none ;-)

> What do you guys recommend for an oldish PCI PowerMac (with a G3 
> upgrade card)? I once had a YellowDog Linux on it but that was really 
> bad (starting with no german Keyboard support). 

FreeBSD won't run on that box, but NetBSD might. In your case, though,
I'd recommend one of the appropriate Linux distributions. Especially
since most here run Linux anyway so it's more likely that you will get
help in case you run into problems.

-- 
Chris