Re: Installing GNUstep on FreeBSD

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,
> Hi guys,
>
> A while back I mentioned that I had been working on a new IDE for 
> GNUstep. I am now testing out the different environments that GNUsteps 
> runs to learn more about what I will need to do to make it work best 
> on clean systems. Anyways, I am far from terminal loving expert and 
> was just wondering if I could get some help installing a fresh GNUstep 
> environment on FreeBSD. I simply want the simplest configuration with 
> wmaker, cairo, Objectve-C 2.0, gnu-base, gnu-gui, /et cetera/. I have 
> been trying for days to simply compile GNUstep on FreeBSD 9.0  fresh 
> instillation using the various instructions on the internet and keep 
> getting all sorts of errors. I would like to simply use the ports 
> available on FreeBSD to do the job, but have found instructions which 
> include changing configuration files, to changing etc/make.conf. Where 
> the instructions on the GNUStep website is as easy as
>
> Where I get a 'needs compiler' error. But Clang and GCC are installed.
Ports should install clenaly, or there is a bug in ports. I think the 
freebsd maintainers read this list, but you should rebort the bugs 
directly to freebsd.

FreeBSD's 9 default compilers are crippled; gcc got obj-c supprot 
removed sinve freebsd8 and thus cannot compile GS, while the default 
clang doesn't work either. But you can install gcc or clang from ports 
and then instruct make to use it.

I am running gnustep on freebsd compiled from sources without troubles.

each time you configure, do:
./configure CC=/usr/local/bin/clang

(or the equivalent to your gcc installed from ports, to override the 
default gcc and clang compilers).

For packages that do not need configure, you don't need this, they will 
just work fine with "make".
> I do not prefer to use an SVN, I was having more problems with that 
> then I wanted.
Agreed, it is a bad advice that is often given by developers. However 
you can get easily the nightly tarballs that get generated each day as 
well as release tarballs, if the releases aren't current enough for you.
> I am learning fast, and eventually I want to release the IDE I am 
> developing for both OS X and GNUstep/FreeBSD (clean environment). Any 
> help appreciated.
>
> Also, It seems that Ubuntu is the easiest to get it running on, but I 
> think I'd prefer something with out another setup already installed.
For the quickest way, there is a read-made ISO image for virtual 
machine, one step to gnustep.

Installing GS is really simple on most platforms: configure && make 
install. On FreeBSD 9 you have the

Riccardo