On 5/12/26 09:59, Joseph Maloney wrote:
For me the layout Debian uses is a total no-op. But I know this is a common
thing beyond Debian and where they are set in their ways so am I. I have
considered external packaging.
Depending from which angle one is looking at it, the layout used in
Debian for the GNUstep installations is either a mess or a blessing.
It is probably a complete mess as seen from a pure GNUstep angle, and
this is probably a fair assessment from this perspective.
But then again, when seen from the perspective of the system designed by
and for Debian it is a blessing to have GNUstep included alongside other
desktop options because it gives an umatched visibility to GNUstep for
interested Debian users who don't need to compile it on their own to be
able to have a look. This is an absolutely good thing as it shows that
GNUstep is alive and growing. And this is the main reason why it is
included in the wmlive distribution despite the shortcomings of the
packages distributed by Debian.
Nonetheless, in context of wmlive, i was doubting if it wouldn't
actually be doing a disservice to GNUstep by including the Debian
package variants.
The GNUstep packages as currently distributed by Debian are not
supporting libobjc2 nor ARC, and quite a few users/developers have
already complained about this lack with wmlive because their software
requires these features. Unfortunately, i am not in the position to
recompile all the Debian GNUstep components with these features on my
own as i lack the specific expertise and understanding required to do
the same.
I am not a programmer and my possibilities for contributions are limited
to sysadmin level activities such as building and providing the
live-build based wmlive ISO images, mostly recombining what is already
readily available.
In fact, i personally think that Debian is unintentionally rather doing
a disservice to GNUstep by not already providing libobjc2 based GNUstep
packages instead of the current offerings. This is something that should
have been done already since years.
But just like for the GNUstep project itself, the amount of sufficiently
capable package maintainers is limited, and the few who are taking the
burden of the work can't be expected to autoexploit themselves much more
than they already do. Just as everybody else, these people only have 24
hours a day at their disposal, and need to juggle their Debian
activities with the real life of any adult, like earning money, care for
their family, and so on.
Said that, there appear to be initiatives underway in Debian to take
care of the libobjc2/ARC hurdle, but it is currently unclear what the
actual status of concrete activities is. For this, please refer to
https://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-gnustep-maintainers/2025-January/006241.html
from January 2025, which offers a glimmer of hope, albeit without any
visible results so far. I guess a helping hand would be very well received.
For my own project https://wmlive.sourceforge.net the inclusion of
GNUstep components is optional and, as used to be the case in prior
years, the absence of them wouldn't make any real difference for its
usefulness. While it does include a wide range of GNUstep components it
doesn't aim at being a GNUstep centric distribution.
The main idiosyncratic objective of wmlive is to provide a mostly
complete Debian system aimed at competent system administrators
requiring a convenient tool box of utilities, and to have the Window
Maker X11 window manager as its primary GUI. It is not aimed at newbie
Linux users who would be much better served with any other of the more
popular Linux distributions. And it doesn't care about Wayland either.
Hopefully, it should be clear that the availablilty of GNUstep packages
within the Debian context is very valuable for offering a show case for
GNUstep. The way it currently is, and as unsatisfying as it might appear
when seen from other vantage points, it does provide visibility for
GNUstep. And that certainly is a very good thing.
Thanks to all for your wonderful work!
Regards,
P.Seelig
https://fosstodon.org/@wmlive | https://wmlive.sourceforge.net
