Re: [Announcement] Window Maker Live 12.8 with GNUstep

[Paul Seelig]

Sending message again because for some unknown reason it doesn't seem to
show up on lists.gnu.org's discuss-gnustep archive.

On 12/13/24 01:42, Gryllida wrote:
> hi paul seelig and thanks for the note. there is also
> https://onflapp.github.io/gs-desktop/index.html which is a bit similar
> in its objective, which is supplied as .sh not .iso though. maybe the
> two groups could share the codes or efforts.
Thanks Gryllida for the heads up!

Of course, i am already aware of both the excellent GS-Desktop and
NEXTSPACE projects, although my approach is more simplistic and different.

Window Maker Live doesn't aim for being a GNUstep desktop, but rather
intents to be a Linux system using Window Maker as its default GUI, and
that contains and uses GNUstep components without actually depending on
them. The idea is to have a fully working system even if the user
decides to uninstall all things GNUstep apart from Window Maker.

Personally, i am not interested in replicating the NeXTSTEP of the 90's
but try to integrate as much useful components as possible taken from
everywhere. Our computing happens in the contemporary real world and it
makes lots of sense to take advantage of the possibilities it offers.

Nonetheless, with the some effort and time investment, Window Maker
Live's build tree could be used to create a true GNUstep live system,
instead.

Unfortunately the Window Maker Live desktop cannot easily be made to
*not* look as retro as it currently does, because the WINGs widget set
used by Window Maker unfortunately dictates and limits what theming
could accomplish, and thus effectively becomes the lowest common
denominator for a unified look. Probably someone capable enough should
rewrite Window Maker to use the GNUstep GUI libraries instead of WINGs
(and also leaving out its unnecessary feature creep) .

On a related note: I became shamefully aware that i actually neglected
one major aspect of the included GNUstep components:

Window Maker Live is *not* using the outdated GNUstep packages of
Debian/Bookworm, but instead relies for this version on the rather up to
date GNUstep release versions available in Debian/Testing (aka Trixie).
These packages have been recompiled for inclusion with Bookworm
dependencies, including the development applications Gorm and ProjectCenter.

This means in first place that Window Maker Live ships with rather up to
date GNUstep components and therefore is a much better choice regarding
GNUstep than Debian/Stable for users who don't want to take the risk of
upgrading to still work in progress Debian/Trixie.

In addition, five typical GNUstep themes and also Thematic.app were
packaged and added, in order to enable interested parties to actually
try and verify GNUstep's theming capabilities instead of just relying on
hearsay and screenshots. The GNUstep variant of current release version
of the Netsurf web browser has been packaged and included under the name
of of WebSurf and added in GWorkspace as its configured web browser. The
current GNU Emacs was included in its GNUstep variant. The vector
drawing application Graphos, the editor Gemas, and the directory syncing
tool StepSync have also been packaged and included.

None of these mentioned applications are available even in
Debian/Unstable, but only in Window Maker Live.

All these mentioned GNUstep packages can be downloaded from the
associated repo maintained at https://wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/ for
installation even on regular Debian/Bookworm systems without having to
install Window Maker Live.

This is why why i stated before that to my knowledge no other Linux
distribution comes even close to this level of GNUstep integration and
usability.

Hope this makes better understandable why i dare proposing Window Maker
Live for your consideration.

Thanks again,
Paul Seelig