Re: GNUstep distro

[Sebastian Reitenbach]

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 ;)


Install it, put this into your .profile:
VERSION=5.3
export PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.eu.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/${VERSION}/packages/`uname 
-m`/

source that file, run:

sudo pkg_add -i gnustep-desktop

afterward, put this into your .xsession:

if [ -f /usr/local/share/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh ];then
        . /usr/local/share/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
fi

export GNUSTEP_STRING_ENCODING=NSUTF8StringEncoding
export LC_ALL='en_EN.UTF-8'
export LC_CTYPE='en_US.UTF-8'
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/gpbs ];then
        /usr/local/bin/gpbs
fi
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/gdnc ];then
        /usr/local/bin/gdnc
fi
wmaker &

if [ -x /usr/local/bin/GWorkspace ];then
        /usr/local/bin/make_services
        /usr/local/bin/GWorkspace
fi


Then login, and enjoy your GNUstep desktop ;)

Note: OpenBSD 5.3, comes with GNUstep from about a year ago.
Since the last release, and the freshly released/updates apps and libs,
happened just too late for the release cycle.

If you want to have the latest greatest, you should install OpenBSD from
snapshots ;)

>
> Pretty much all the tools to create one are in the Debian
> repositories, and thus also in Ubuntu. By "all the tools", I mean a
> window manager, text editor, terminal, image viewer, calculator, email
> client, media player, etc. The only items missing are the big
> productivity apps - an office suite, web browser and chat client.
> Fortunately those are easily obtained, although of course they do not
> share the look & feel.
>
> However, there are some problems which suggest to me that the
> components in the Debian repos are long-neglected.
>
> E.g., menu generation in Window Maker is broken, although there is a
> workaround; the wdm desktop manager is unable to shutdown or reboot
> the machine; and the FSviewer file manager app is missing, although
> its icon set is still present.
>
> I have also found that the GWorkSpace app seems to conflict with
> Window Maker itself - you get two Docks, for instance, one positioned
> top-left in NeXT style and one centred, Mac OS X style. However, I
> can't find how to add icons to the GWorkSpace dock, nor how to
> customise its menus, so I have been more or less forced to base my
> exploratory efforts around Window Maker, which offers quite good
> customisability.


A GWorkspace user-guide, you may find here:
http://gnustep.made-it.com/Guides/GWorkspace.html

cheers,
Sebastian

>
> 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...
>
> --
> 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
>
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