Re: Starting GNUstep (Debian)

[Alex Perez]

Adrian Robert wrote:

> Hi,
>
> FWIW, I agree with the sentiments of your post.  I am not sure about any 
> organizational changes but do think GNUstep on linux at least has gotten 
> to the point where presenting itself as a desktop alternative to Gnome 
> and KDE is not at all unrealistic, and it would lower the energy barrier 
> for people to become involved.
>
> - GNUstep is already fortunate to be distributed as Debian packages.  
> But you need to install them piecemeal, and hack around a little as 
> noted to get things set up.  It would be very little effort to create a 
> single meta-package "GNUstep" (or maybe "GNUstep-desktop") containing 
> the libraries and docs, workspace, mail, gorm, projectcenter, the basic 
> pdf and image viewers, cynthiune (if it's in debian) and maybe 
> eventually terminal / textedit / preferences if they ever have a 
> release, together with windowmaker and the ".desktop" file suggested to 
> appear in the "sessions" list.
This is the responsibility of the debian package maintainer, Gurkan 
Sengun. Take it up on the gnustep-packages mailing list, which is hosted 
at gna.org (yes, gnA.org).
> - Something similar might eventually be done for Fedora and Gentoo, 
> since there have been initial packaging efforts for those 
> distributions.  This, together with all the Debian-derivative 
> distributions, would cover a large part of the linux world at least.
I have had personal interaction with the fedora folks, and they are 100% 
opposed to adding any other "dsektop environments" to fedora. I 
explained to them that GNUstep was not a desktop environment and further 
explained that the packages were also quite small, but they would have 
none of it. Getting packages into Fedora Core is impossible at this 
point, as their stated policy is to remove stuff from their bloated 
distro, not add it. Unfortunate, but true. While there may be RPM's for 
Fedora floating around, they will not be part of Fedora Core any time 
within the next several years.
> While I appreciate the attractiveness of pure-GNUstep distributions and 
> the efforts that people have put into them, the need to install an 
> entire distribution can represent a significant energy barrier for 
> people trying out GNUstep, so smooth setup from distribution packages 
> may recruit additional users (and from there developers).
I agree. And yet, on the flipside, with something such as the GNUstep 
LiveCD, you can download it, check out GNUstep and WindowMaker, all with 
zero risk.

> All of this said, I think some might worry about a huge flood of bug 
> reports and questions if GNUstep became more widely used.  Maybe this 
> should wait for another few months so that GUI can get to 1.0, a 
> user-friendly "services" package can be put together out of the existing 
> examples, and at least a rudimentary solution be put into place for 
> in-application Help.  This would put usability to about where GNOME was 
> circa early 2000 (with a better, more mature framework underneath).
I don't think anyone is worried about a flood of bugreports....
As for GUI hitting version 1.0, it's going to be more than a few months. 
Last I was aware, work had resumed on HelpViewer, but I am not quite 
sure what the current status of that is.