Re: GNUstep installation - a 'Newbie' question

[Chris B. Vetter]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003 21:56:19 +0200 (Europe/Berlin)
Dirk Theisen <d.theisen@gmx.net> wrote:
[...]
> I imagine being a recommendation on the GNUstep site, telling me which
> distro has been tested and is easy to install from scratch. 

I don't think that's a good idea, as people ususally have a certain
preference. Instead, it would be better to collect user experiences with
different Operating Systems slash Distribution.

[...]
> It should be recommended to do a minimal install without a desktop 
> environment (that can get in the way of GNUstep). 

IMHO, it's generally a good idea to install as little as possible during
setup and then install everything you *need* from scratch.

> I further imagine doing an apt-get (or some other package manager)
> that installs GNUstep *including all the dependent libraries*, plus a 
> suitable window manager *from sources* (! so we are architecture 
> independent). 

Sounds like you're looking for BSD's port system. Installing GNUstep
from ports is as simple as

 # cd /usr/ports/devel/gnustep
 # make install clean

> It should also configure the system to run the demons necessary and 
> source GNUstep.sh in sh and csh compatible shells. 

Yep, ports do that, except for adding the sourcing of GNUstep.sh on a
per user level.

> I saw my friend struggle with all the libraries necessary and with 
> getting rid of KDE or Gnome etc. This should not be necessary. 

What should not be necessary, Gnome and KDE? ;-)

> Unfortunately, I have not the skills to do that. But I imagine this 
> should not be too hard for a Linux power-user (which I am not). 

This is where LinuxSTEP should bridge the gap, as ...

> It would definitely help to get Cocoa open source programmers (like
> me) try out GNUstep and (maybe) jump onto the train. This is where the
> people are who got "OpenStep" experience recently. 

... I don't think GNUstep's goal should be "out of the box" on various
flavours of UNICES. Each system has its own background, quirks and
requirements that GNUstep cannot (and should not, IMHO) meet by default.

> Until then, I am still lurking and working from over the fence (on OS
> X). I think it is time to make GS more approachable and grow the
> developer base.

Yes, but to morph GNUstep into a "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" (for you
non-native German speakers, that's a legendary animal in German
mythology ;-) may not be the way to go.

What about offering precompiled binaries of all necessary libs and make
them available for download?

Or, maybe even better, what about including all necessary libs 'inside'
GNUstep's source tree and have them compile and link during install? At
least that would assure that all required libs are available and
installed...

-- 
Chris