Re: Comments on the website from people on twitter...

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

Austin Clow wrote:
> What would be great if is I could get GNUstep to just install on 
> FreeBSD following the instructions that are posted on the website.
>
> Here: http://www.gnustep.org/resources/sources.html
> FreeBSD
> cd /usr/ports/devel/gnustep
> make install clean
>
> Has never worked for me, it also suggested to me the first time that I 
> tried installing it was that was all I needed to do. But then I 
> learned about all the dependencies that may or may not be installed by 
> using that command, and then I realized that I may never get it to 
> work. Or something like that. So I stopped. I am sure that there are 
> more on that list that have since no longer been able to work with the 
> instructions because of how new distributions of the OS are configured.
>
> 20 websites later with various instructions and I still can't get it 
> to work. I am far from a terminal wizard, but there always seems to be 
> a "OH what you need to do is edit the configuration file for 
> q3241q234rqwe on that version of FreeBSD" w.e.
That is another "sad" feedback. "ports" should just install and they did 
for me. If they don't work, there is probably a mix of a problem between 
the port maintainer (bug to them) and GNUstep itself Getting these 
sorted out is time-consuming
> I am attracted to the dream of GNUstep, but my dream is clearly not 
> exactly what everyone else is dreaming. I think GNUstep needs some 
> goals and leadership. I know what I would nix first: TRYING TO SUPPORT 
> EVERYTHING and not having the BEST options being default. I mean 
> getting Objective-C 2.0 and Cairo seems like climbing a mountain 
> sometimes. At least it used to… I haven't tried in a while.
Well, except in certain cases, we try to fall back. If you don't have 
cairo, we will use art, if you don't have art, we will use xlib. I just 
tried that last week and the fall-back mechanism works.
If neither of these three backends works for you, then well you have a 
major problem you shall better report... or you have something quite 
misinstalled.

Objective-C 2.0 is absolutely not required! We still compile perfectly 
with gcc 3.4, I tested last week! However if your system has support for 
it, it is correct to try to enable it I think!
> Binary distributions: A while back, I could not figure out why Ubuntu 
> still had old versions of GNUstep. I had thought somebody upgraded 
> them recently, but when I checked it was not so (at least it appeared 
> not so in PackageManager). So I moved on crying.
I don't use Ubuntu, but often it is just Debian. And Debian packages of 
GS are something I will not utter words, because they are not just old, 
they are _criminal_.

I have an old laptop I just for the sake keep tracking a couple of 
binary GS packages and it is not to lough, but to cry. Not only they are 
old (with tons of patches to get stuff wrokign in impossible combination 
of versions of core stuff) but also sometimes broken because of horrible 
mixes of obj-c libraries, or by not upgrading core libraries 
(base/gui/back) together and the related apps. A nightmare.
> Good instructions for those who know nothing about Unix/Linux world 
> would improve a lot.
True. Perhaps for each system we should have two ways:
1) using "binary packages"
2) building from source

Theoretically, building from source should be all the same, except the 
initial dependency phase and some configure options.

I think this is something for the Wiki.

Riccardo