Re: Bugs in gui/back

[Josh Freeman]

On Apr 25, 2018, at 11:26 AM, Andreas Höschler wrote:

> I tried to install a different window manager on this Ubuntu 16.04  
> box to check out whether the problem is window manager related. I  
> tried Window Maker
>
>         add-apt-repository ppa:profzoom/wmaker
>         apt-get update
>         apt-get install wmaker
>
> and was even able to select that on the login screen. But logging in  
> got me immediately rerouted to the login screen. So it simply did  
> not work. I tried a bunch of other window managers from
>
>         https://www.ubuntupit.com/install-various-desktop-environment-ubuntu/
>
> without success. Not one wanted to work. Pretty annoying and  
> discouraging experience so far. The machine is now completely messed  
> up. I not even get back into the original Unity 8 desktop. After a  
> reboot I end up on some kind of xfce login screen with no option to  
> choose a different window manager. :-(


   This won't help your broken setup, but once you get a working OS  
again, I'd suggest two things:

1) Install some virtualization software, so you can test out  
potentially-breaking installs on a virtual machine first. (Take a VM  
snapshot right before doing something risky, so you can easily revert  
the changes if it breaks). Virtualization can also save time when  
doing cross-platform Mac/GNUstep development: Installing a Linux VM on  
your Mac allows you to use both development environments from a single  
computer.

2) Before adding an external PPA for a desktop environment, first try  
installing the distro's own packaged version. I've installed a bunch  
of different DEs (including wmaker) in Ubuntu from its repository  
packages, and fortunately, they've mostly worked (never had a machine  
become unusable).


> It might be the time for a complete reinstall of the OS. Since the  
> Linux was preinstalled on this machine I do not even have an install  
> CD and would have to create one first. This brings me to the  
> question which distro to use.
>
> What's the quickest and cleanest way to set up a Linux/GNUstep  
> machine on current hardware? Which distro do you recommend?

   For GNUstep GUI-app development, I'd suggest MATE as the desktop  
environment, and the easiest way to get it is a distro where MATE's  
the built-in default: Ubuntu MATE (17.10 or 18.04), or Linux MATE.

   Most desktop environments have at least some minor UI issues with  
GNUstep GUI apps (avoid Unity/Compiz), but MATE seems to be the most  
compatible - no issues as far as I've seen [1].

   As for the quickest way to set up GNUstep (on Ubuntu/Mint):

   If you need clang or Objective-C 2.0 features, you can use the  
install script (GNUstep/libobjc2 runtime) at: http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/GNUstep_under_Ubuntu_Linux 
 [2].

   Otherwise, you can install GNUstep from distro packages (gcc  
compiler/runtime) - if you use this option, Ubuntu would be preferable  
to Mint, because its GNUstep packages are more recent:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential libgnustep- 
gui-dev gnustep-examples
echo ". /usr/lib/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
. /usr/lib/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh


Cheers,

Josh


[1] PikoPixel has workarounds for DE-specific GNUstep UI issues in:  
Budgie, Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, LXDE, Pantheon, Unity, Xfce, &  
WindowMaker. Most of the issues are due to incorrect window-style- 
offsets values. You can browse PikoPixel's workaround code in the  
Debian GNUstep team's online mirror:
https://salsa.debian.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=kPPGSWindowManagerTypeMask_&group_id=&project_id=18300&search_code=true&repository_ref=master

[2] The "GNUstep under Ubuntu Linux" script will install a working  
GNUstep environment, but it uses the fragile ABI. If you want the  
nonfragile ABI, you currently need to use the script & patch attached  
to this list message:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2017-12/msg00129.html