Re: GNUstep Live on OSnews

[Xavier Brochard]

Le 30 juillet, 12:13:06 Riccardo Mottola a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> On 2017-07-29 19:42:02 +0200 Ivan Vučica <ivan@vucica.net> wrote:
> > \o/
> > 
> > On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 2:42 PM Liam Proven <lproven@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> http://www.osnews.com/story/29939/GNUSTEP_live_CD_2_5_released
> >> 
> >> Also, there's a new release of GNUstep Live! :-)
> 
> "cool": the GNUstep LiveCD gets us in the news again!
> Sadly, the LiveCD has never been the best way to present us and it
> apparently is even less so now.
> 
> I haven't played with it myself this time, so I don't know exactly which
> applications are packaged in, which version they are and how things are
> configured. Apps used to derive from the Debian packages, with all
> limitations of availability and versions, since GNUstep on Debian is surely
> "not the best way" do showcase us.
> 
> Sure, GNUstep lacks many things and "continues" to lack them and I don't
> want to start again a discussion on what should and should not be done,
> because they are the most useless and irritating threads that happen on
> this mailig list, while our few energies should be catered in doing things.
> 
> However, reading that "nothing changed" in 8 years is quite irritating, by
> people who click for 10 minutes on a LiveCD. There you can only check a
> couple of windows and menus, not much more.
> 
> I just had a look at the screenshots on the LiveCD sites and they are all
> "old" and made a quick mental comparison.
> 
> 
> The progress has been a lot on most applications displayed there, deep
> progress. Back then most applications there (e.g. GNUMail and GWorkspace
> itself) were bitrotting, quite unportable and could even crash with a few
> mouseclick. In so many years, we gathered a lot of new core functionality
> (we caught up with API, Objective-C 2 and the Apps had to evolve with them
> and most of them did well! Theming capabilities refined in the last years!
> 
> Also, perhaps we don't have a Browser, little progress on the Preferences
> side... but our some of our apps did improve way beyond simple maintenance!
> Just the amount of bugs fixed in GNUMail in the past 2 years is notable
> 
> And we have new nice apps too. Does the LiveCD have PikoPixel for example? A
> very nice and polished application. And Laterna Magica? Battery Monitor?
> Graphos? just to mention apps that practially did not exist or were
> unusable 8 years ago.
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20070220161636/http://gap.nongnu.org:80/
> 
> And now - back to work GNUstep!
> 
> Riccardo
> 
> 

Hi Riccardo

One problem is that the GNUstep project has nearly nothing to show to end 
users (except screenshots and descriptions). As a consequence a lot of people 
doesn't understand the project. They want to do a quick try but they can't.
(in France we have the great http://linuxfr.org website where such questions 
often comes.)

As I've always wanted to work on a light desktop using GNUstep, I propose to 
work on this :
Even if the project is not about building a desktop, a lots of components are 
already present. My idea is to write a short how-to that can be polished along 
the time. It should answer to such basic questions that are evident for the 
team but not for the others :
- which Window Manager can I choose ? which one for that task ?
- how should I configure GWorkspace ?
- where can I find themes ?
- can I take some Etoilé components ?
etc.

Hence, starting with something light and extending it later. Nothing related 
to development but to building a working environment. I think it can help to 
attract devs because one can see what small apps / components are missing, and 
start to develop using GNUstep framework and tools.

Later this how-to can serve as a basis for better packaging in distribs.

I'm a sysadmin, working with end users in mind, trying to install simple, rock 
and solid desktops for them. But I'm not a dev, I will have a lot of questions 
to ask...
Who wants to help ?

Regards
Xavier Brochard