newbie questions

[Richard Danter]

Hi all,

Please forgive me if I ask some dumb questions but I am trying to set up
a GNUstep environment for the first time and could do with some
assistance.

I have some experience with C/Motif, C++/Qt and C++/wxWidgets
application development but I want to try out Obj-C/GNUstep for a new
project.

I have tried installing GNUstep on both an Ubuntu Linux machine with a
GNOME desktop and on a NetBSD machine which is rather old (hardware, not
NetBSD version) and since it can't cope with either GNOME or KDE is
currently using good old Motif Window Manager.

I have read the Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C and The
Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language docs from Apple.

So far I have successfully built some trivial command line apps and the
GNUstep example apps so I am confident the build environment at least is
working. Already I think I like Objective-C more than C++, but I have
always considered myself a C programmer more than C++ anyway. I guess
time will tell which I end up preferring, I don't want to start any holy
wars about languages here anyway.

I have two main questions:

 1. Can GNUstep apps have a "native" look and feel?

By this I mean can a GNUstep application be configured so it looks just
like the other GNOME/KDE/Motif/whatever applications? The big difference
I have noticed is that the menu deems to be in a window of it's own
rather than the now "standard" location at the top of the main window
(or top of the screen on Mac OS/X), but also there is an icon that
floats about on the desktop.

Main reason for this question is that I do not want to confuse people
used to GNOME/KDE with this "strange" behaviour.

  2. How to set up GNUstep desktop on NetBSD

I have looked arounf the GWorkspace web site and Google has taken me to
many new web sites with tones of interesting information, but I can't
seem to find a simple step-by-step guide to getting a full GNUstep
desktop.

On NetBSD right now I have XDM running so I have a lightweight graphical
login, then a .xsession file in my home area which simply runs an xterm
and mwm.

I have tried simply replacing mwm with GWorkspace but it seems that it
is not a window manager (there is no border/title bar so I can't move or
size the windows. I also had a problem with it actually finding
GWorkspace executable since I don't think my .bashrc file is being
executed before .xsession and so the environment is not being set up. I
solved that by sourcing the GNUstep.sh script in /etc/profile but I am
not sure that is the correct solution.

So what is the correct .xsession file supposed to look like? What win
manager should I run, or did I do something else wrong?

Many thanks in advance!

Rich