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Re: Cacao Linux - GNUstep based Linux distribution


From: Riccardo Mottola
Subject: Re: Cacao Linux - GNUstep based Linux distribution
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 18:06:12 +0200
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0 SeaMonkey/2.49.4

Hi,

Gregory Casamento wrote:

I am launching a kickstarter project to help to create a Linux distribution based on GNUstep.  Please take a look, feel free to make suggestions and comment.  The link is here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/203272607/the-cacoa-linux-project-a-gnustep-based-distro

We had the idea of a "reference" distribution many times and I think it is a good way to spread the GNUstep word. To be honest, the announce is a bit unexpected, I would have liked to discuss the main topics and goals, if not public, at least with some of the core members. As of now, I can only share some doubts and/or things I would have ordered differently

I read the announce after a couple of days again, just to have things settle down.

The way the description is stated and the first goal of 12K implies that for it you will get a "complete" distro and 10.12 APIs. I think first, that it is not very realistic, second that it is also not necessary to get all 10.12 APIs to get a full working distribution with desktop! A subset of these APIs is needed - after all ever since 10.4 one can say that the Cocoa APIs are very complete for a good desktop! Less exciting, but for the first step cleaning up what we have is perhaps enough, while the rest is the work for actually fitting all things together for a distribution.


WebKit port and WebCore are of course very much needed  - as well as a set of supporting other Frameworks, at least partially implemented, like CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics and some basic Framework for device management.

Instead of mentioning Darling, I would have mentioned a precise set of Applications and Utilities native for GNUstep which are going to compose this "distro". After all, a Distro is a sum of Apps and Frameworks on top of a Linux foundation.

Having super Cocoa API, but nothing to show it with, is of little interest for a distribution, in my opinion.

I can write it the other way around: the "project" seems to sum up different ideas living in GNUstep: desktop within a distribution, porting (Mac compatibility) and porting up to the extreme of Darling.

A Distribution instead for me is pointing to the end-users, perhaps more a developer or more desktop. I would have thus put these steps for a "Distribution". Just as an idea, nothing definitive:

1) packaging and preparation of the distribution foundation (e.g. Devuan + all relevant packages we want in), build architecture, etc. The "bases". Possibly a LiveCD that can be installed. Questions about servers and repositories need to be addressed doo
2) Enhancements and fixes to
    a) Foundation and AppKit: e.g. completion of printing, fixes for X bugs (etc etc)     b) completion of certain core apps that want to be included (e.g. Debugger in ProjectCenter, completion of Bean or any other thing which could be relevant)
3) New Frameworks, e.g. WebKit/WebCore
4) Ported apps from Mac (which? Terminal, graphics utility ..... XXXX)
5) New Apps like Installer and Login
6) APIs just enough to support 3, 4 and 5

Perhaps less shiny than the promise of Darling and 10.12 api, but more "distribution" oriented. There are a lot of hairy things.

Nothing prevents us of a separate funding for other specific things.

Riccardo




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