Re: Brutal review…

[Daniel Boyd]

The problem with a desktop environment metapackage is that gnustep is not a 
desktop environment. Window Maker *uses* gnustep, but it is not gnustep proper. 
In the same way that xfce uses gtk+. 

I think you need to strike a balance somehow. On one hand, we don’t want to 
make it hard to discover gnustep apps. But on the other hand, I think it’s 
important that we don’t add to the confusion about what gnustep actually is—a 
framework upon which apps are built. Not the apps themselves. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 18, 2023, at 00:32, H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns@goldelico.com> wrote:
> 
> Well, on second thought it is a matter of definition.
> 
> There could be:
> gsde    - as the GNUstep based desktop (equivalent to xfce4 for example)
> gnustep    - as the full and complete development system (equivalent to Xcode)
> gap        - the GNUstep applications
> 
> 
>>> Am 18.10.2023 um 07:11 schrieb H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns@goldelico.com>:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Am 18.10.2023 um 00:15 schrieb Daniel Boyd <danieljboyd@icloud.com>:
>>> 
>>> Yeah you're right -- that was oversimplifying.
>>> 
>>> I think you need several metapackages
>>> 
>>> metapackages for running gnustep apps
>>> gnustep -- synonym for gnustep-clang (at least I think that should be the 
>>> default)
>> 
>> No, if you apt install lxde or xfce4 or mate or ... it is simply a 
>> metapackage not for running apps but a full preconfigured desktop including 
>> some default setup and apps like Terminal, web browser. That is the best 
>> user experience.
>> 
>> So it should be a package that installs gnustep desktop eonvironment. I.e. 
>> base, gui, gap apps, etc. which can be grouped in other metapackages (e.g. 
>> gnustep-core, gnustep-gap)
>> 
>> And then there should be gnustep-dev for being able to develop packages. 
>> Which will be best developer experience.
>> 
>>> gnustep-gcc
>>> gnustep-clang
>>> 
>>> metapackages for developing gnustep apps
>>> gnustep-dev (installs gnustep-clang-dev)
>>> gnustep-gcc-dev
>>> gnustep-clang-dev
>>> 
>>> And then that way if you're developing an app that requires libobjc2, you 
>>> can just add gnustep-clang as a dependency. (I'm not sure gcc/clang is the 
>>> best approach. objc1/objc2 might be better...? Regardless, I think you name 
>>> it whatever would be most obvious to someone new to the project.)
>>> 
>>>> On Oct 17, 2023, at 4:39 PM, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo.mottola@libero.it> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>> Daniel Boyd wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Project goal should be for the instructions to get a working gnustep
>>>>> environment (in Debian) to be as simple as:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> sudo apt install gnustep
>>>> 
>>>> that's oversimplifying, but something along a couple of virtual packages
>>>> like "gnustep core" "gnustep development" "gnustep games" "gnustep net
>>>> apps" (if we had more than gnumail...)could do.
>>>> A "gnustep full" is a bit overkill, but for whom wants it would be also
>>>> easy to do. I don't know how xfce or gnome do things nowadays, because I
>>>> always go the "cherry-pick" route there too.
>> 
>> They do it all the overkill way :)
>> 
>>>> 
>>>> These would just pull in the proper selection of packages which should
>>>> be separately available. Not even that hard, even on debian. Debian has
>>>> most stuff already, except some long-standing missing things.
>>>> 
>>>> With our private repo, even easier then. A thing to remember would be to
>>>> make them incompatible with the offical debian packages or something
>>>> similar, do be sure that they don't get mixed up.
>> 
>> It is easy to mix public and private repos.
>> 
>> Just my 2cts
>> 
>> -- hns
>> 
>