On 9 May 2013 08:27, Riccardo Mottola <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > > On 05/08/13 17:32, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so. >> >> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all? > > An official, up-to-date, "GNUstep only" distro doesn't exist.
I thought as much. > There are > several Linux and BSD distributions which provide packages of GNUstep apps, > of varying quality and breadth. [Nod] > Richard Stonehouse provides a bootable VM > image which is quite nice. I had not heard of this. I have downloaded it now. It will not import into VirtualBox, nor can VBox mount its hard disk on its own. > OpenBSD should be quite decent, since Sebastiaa usually works closely with > GNustep to make sure apps work and also many GAP apps are there. > FreeBSD, NetBSD should be decent too. > Linux should be fine with Gentoo. > > Saldy (me, as a long long time Debian user), the official Debian packages > are among the worst. Many reasons. It is going to improve with the next > cycle i think, Yavor did some good work there. > > There is one last way: Use unofficial packages. Philippe provides > Debian/Ubuntu packages here that are even tracking unstable. Richard makes > his RPM packages public too. You keep mentioning people's (?) given names without surnames or any way for me to find the work that you are referring to...? >> Pretty much all the tools to create one are in the Debian >> repositories, and thus also in Ubuntu. By "all the tools", I mean a >> window manager, text editor, terminal, image viewer, calculator, email >> client, media player, etc. The only items missing are the big >> productivity apps - an office suite, web browser and chat client. >> Fortunately those are easily obtained, although of course they do not >> share the look & feel. > > Right so. > > >> E.g., menu generation in Window Maker is broken, although there is a >> workaround; the wdm desktop manager is unable to shutdown or reboot >> the machine; and the FSviewer file manager app is missing, although >> its icon set is still present. > > Menu entries for WindowMaker in debian work, I get an entry for each > installed GS app! Not for me, they don't, and it is a documented problem. Perhaps you have already applied the fix: http://administratosphere.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/the-current-state-of-window-maker/ > YOu shold not need FSViewer, but use GWorkspace instead (Debian ships like a > 2-year old version, pretti ridiculous, ith as stability and crash problems, > but they will update I hope) It is indeed very unstable. I have found, as I said, that GWorkSpace seemed to support very little customisation - not enough to create a functional desktop. As I already said, I could not add apps to the Dock, nor find any way to customise its menu. Without being able to launch new apps - not just GNUstep apps, but any Linux apps - it is not really possible to build a complete, functional desktop. >> I have also found that the GWorkSpace app seems to conflict with >> Window Maker itself - you get two Docks, for instance, one positioned >> top-left in NeXT style and one centred, Mac OS X style. However, I >> can't find how to add icons to the GWorkSpace dock, nor how to >> customise its menus, so I have been more or less forced to base my >> exploratory efforts around Window Maker, which offers quite good >> customisability. > > You can customize GWorkspace. You can disable the Desktop completely > (Tools->Show Desktop) or disable the dock (Preferences->Desktop->General) > > I do hide and show the destkop regulary it is quick. When you hide the > desktop "windowmaker" takes the control over again with its menu. Else, you > work in GWorkspace and so to run application you need to go to your > application folder or use its Dock, Fiend, Tabbed Shelf and other means. Thank you for this info - it's useful. I still suspect that GWorkspace will get in the way too much to be helpful, but I will experiment further. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: [email protected] • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: [email protected] • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 _______________________________________________ Discuss-gnustep mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep
