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The NeXT-Best Thing: GNUSTEP 0.9.4 Live CD 444
roard writes "Following the NeXT tradition with mixed case, GNUSTEP is a live CD/distribution while GNUstep is an implementation of the OpenStep API. GNUSTEP is based on Morphix, and uses the GNUstep libraries and GNUstep-based applications to provide a NeXTSTEP-like environment that people can easily test and use. This new 0.9.4 release comes 8 months since the precedent 0.5 release, and brings a lot of new GNUstep applications with it, as well as an upgrade of the GNUstep libraries and the development tools. In other news, a small demonstration of GNUstep development tools is available in Flash or divx. The old dream of having a GNU OS with Hurd and an OpenStep implementation doesn't seems that far now ;)"
wHy WaS NeXT nAmED LiKE ThAT aNyHoW? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:wHy WaS NeXT nAmED LiKE ThAT aNyHoW? (Score:2)
Re:wHy WaS NeXT nAmED LiKE ThAT aNyHoW? (Score:3, Informative)
The logo was designed by Paul Rand, who designed logos for UPS, IBM, and British Petroleum, among others.
The persistent use inter-capitalization (NextCube, OpenStep, AppKit) probably derives from too much exposure to the NextStep api and Objective C-- both of which use inter-capital
Re:wHy WaS NeXT nAmED LiKE ThAT aNyHoW? (Score:5, Informative)
NEXTSTEP the operating system is and always has been all caps. OPENSTEP the operating system has also always been all caps. OpenStep the API specification is capitalized in camel case, and I'm not going to touch NeXT's computers, because I always get them wrong.
video (Score:3, Informative)
Re:video (Score:2)
Re:video (Score:2)
Isn't divx a codec [doom9.org] that might be contained within MPG files?
Re:video (Score:5, Informative)
Now, to make it even more fun. divx is an implimentation of mpeg-4. So even through it's not an mpeg1 or mpeg2 file, in a sense, it's still an mpeg file.
Re:video (Score:3, Informative)
Re:video (Score:2)
Re:video (Score:2)
Hurd? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hurd? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hurd? (Score:5, Informative)
The relevance to HURD is tenuous, but I recall Roard mentioning recently that he had seen a demo of a GNUstep desktop running on top of HURD, giving a 100% GNU desktop. Perhaps this is what he was referring to. It doesn't bring HURD any close to release, but when HURD is ready (Real Soon Now(TM)), it is likely that there will be a GNUstep desktop waiting for it. If only the GCC developers would commit Objective-C++ to the main tree and let is have a WebKit-based browser...
Re:Hurd? (Score:3, Informative)
If only the GCC developers would commit Objective-C++ to the main tree and let is have a WebKit-based browser...
Ironic state of things, considering that the very first web browser was written [w3.org] for OpenStep in Objective C.Re:Hurd? (Score:3, Informative)
Standard GCC can compile ObjC just fine. But because most major gui free webbrowsers (Mozilla and Konq at least) are written in C++, the only ways to write an OpenStep webbrowser are with ObjC++ or by rewriting the entire engine.
Re:Hurd? (Score:2)
Re:Hurd? (Score:2)
Re:Hurd? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Power of Lisp lies in that messy syntax is the problem. Without it the macro system wouldn't be possible.
The syntax is actually really easy to use, even without a text editor to balance parenthesis for you. The problem is that it isn't easy to use at first, especially if you have prior programming knowledge with one of the many Algol-like languages. It also takes a bit of knowledge of functional programming because it is often easier to do things functionally than imperatively (especially when you ha
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually (Score:2)
GNUstep works on hurd (Score:3, Informative)
available in a gcc/libobjc bug report.
GNU's not Unix - but it is, apparently, Mac OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Microkernel, unix-like userspace, Nextstep-based application development?
Right here [apple.com].
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2)
-The OSX core IS open source, along with alot of other parts Are you forgeting that OSX is based off BSD/Mach? [apple.com]
-Although OSX is very cool (I've got a mac mini, love it to death) it actually does have a few viruses, contrasted to the none on linux.
-There aren't any lawsuits over who owns the linux code. It's owned by the people who wrote it, which is easy to find out, and otherwise it doesn't matter because it's GPL'd.
If you were serious, please check your
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2, Informative)
Um? Like which ones, for instance? (The answer is, there are none.)
There aren't any lawsuits over who owns the linux code.
Okay, that's just not so. Linux is positively buried in litigation.
otherwise it doesn't matter because it's GPL'd
It does matter, because if the people who released the code actually stole the code, then it should be obvious that they have no right to try to saddle the code with
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2)
Opener, to name one. ASTrojan to name abother. Why is there OSX antivirus software? (Which I'll admit is useless, because viruses aren't a real threat on OSX, even if they exist)
Okay, that's just not so. Linux is positively buried in litigation.
Is that so? What "litigation" are you refering to? The SCO trials? If you are refering to the SCO vs The World trials, then I'd get of slashdot pretty fast. SCO has been ordered to prove their claims, and as of yet has not. Just
There ARE no viruses. (Score:4, Informative)
Trojan
There are two trojans and NO VIRUSES. Opener does NOT self replicate, nor does it use any vulnerabilities (you have to deliberately execute it and then type in your password for it to install itself). Therefore it is NOT a virus.
And there are many OS 9 viruses, and Word Macro viruses (not a threat to OS X, but a thread to your Word documents), which explains the OS X antivirus software.
But the fact remains, there are no viruses. There is only two trojans, both of which require you to install them yourself.
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2)
Surely they are not in the same ballpark as all the Windows viruses that circulated in 2004 and wiped out thousands of computers, anyhow.
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:3, Insightful)
You sure 'bout that? [slashdot.org]
/
And as far as viruses, if you think that something that requires active user input and a password to run, then all UNIX-type systems are vulnerable thusly:
sudo rm -rf
Save that with executable permission and send it to your Linux-using buddies, see what happens when they run it. But it ain't a virus.
(tig)
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2)
Because there were Classic Mac viruses, and somebody thought it would be a good idea to port Classic Mac anti-virus software to Mac OS X. So now we have Virex and some Norton/Symantec/Whatever product. Nobody uses either one.
Linux is not in the courts right now. Not at all.
What does the sand look like from underneath? I only get to see the top of it from up here.
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:3, Insightful)
With Mac OS X, simply looking at how many units Apple shipped will tell you how many people are adopting Mac OS X. It's quite an accurate indicator and it can be trusted.
With Linux, there are many commercial distributions (Red Hat, SuSE, etc)
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2)
Re:Plus it isn't open source. (Score:2)
Re:GNU's not Unix - but it is, apparently, Mac OS (Score:2)
Are you saying it's fucked up compared to *STEP or Linux? Solaris? HP-UX? Xenix? AIX? Hell, A/UX?
Don't get me wrong, I love NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. Ran em both for a long time. I'd rather be using them than OS X. But if the complaint is that OS X's fs hierarchy is screwed up compared to *STEP... Seems a bit much. I mean, how much harder is
This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
With the relative compatibility to the OS X/OPENSTEP libraries and code re-use, there could be a real network effect by making this a default environment for Linux and other Unixes.
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want an evironment where The Voice Of God comes down and tells everyone stop their C/C++ crap and go write Objective C programs, use OS X. It's never going to happen with Linux.
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:3, Informative)
But you are quite right in the last part. No way will your average Linux h4ck3r drop C/C++ and go to ObjC. A shame, as ObjC is a lot nicer, but it just won't happen.
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:5, Funny)
There's many [freshmeat.net] more [freshmeat.net] than [freshmeat.net] one [freshmeat.net].
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:2)
It's actually kind of like Java or
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:2)
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:2)
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:2)
I dunno, KDE makes me wanna barf, so I guess I'll choose the one w/out the sheen.
Agreed (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, even Gnome is too much like Windows; even tho it does incorporate some OS X like features as well. But it also seems too fragile and it seems to be going more along the lines of C# dev, which I'm definitely not partial to (it's a mistake guys!).
Obviously, I feel that NeXT/OpenStep got a lot of things goin in the right direction. Turning away from the copy-all-Windows-features mindset seems to be the more logical choice. Will Gnome and KDE still exist? Absolutely. But Windowmaker - regardless of its sometimes slow development pace - is much more of a joy to use than whatever the current default Gnome window mananger is.
I spent many years developing in a Windowmaker environment and they were quite productive. That time changed the way I looked at using my desktop and even though I've switched to OS X, I can still tweak it to work like Windowmaker. So I'll have to second it as the official desktop env for Linux, hands down.
Re:The Reaons Are Obvious (Score:2)
Re:This Should Be THE Desktop Environment for Linu (Score:2)
Nice Demo (Score:2)
Re:Nice Demo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nice Demo (Score:2)
Re:Nice Demo (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nice Demo (Score:2)
What it does isn't so much write out a bunch of code and include a bunch of libraries, but rather what it does is make a live graph objects and then serialize them on save. Starting a nextstep,openstep, cocoa, or gnustep application reconstitutes the serialized object stream from the nib file.
Re:Nice Demo (Score:2)
Re:Nice Demo (Score:2)
Re:Nice Demo (Score:2)
OS X was the best thing to happen to GNUSTEP, as it gave them a target to work towards.
ISO download sites (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks inode.at [inode.at] and Robe GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso [inode.at]
Thanks Lyle E. Dodge [mailto], GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso [incosy.net]
Thanks Philipp [www.bind.ch], GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso [gnustep.bind.ch]
Thanks Daniel Aubry [mailto], GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso [chaostreff.ch]
Thanks Peter Samuelson [mailto], GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso [p12n.org]
Re:ISO download sites (Score:2)
Re:ISO download sites (Score:2)
Made with ibuild (Score:3, Informative)
Developlment IDE (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting how this post appears.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just looking at OpenStep/GNUstep/Cocoa stuff before browsing Slashdot today, and I came here to search for old GNUstep articles. Interesting....
Anyways, GNUstep sounds like a very interesting platform. I have always been fond of NEXTSTEP and Mac OS X, and I have been curious about Objective-C and Cocoa. GNUstep gives me an opportunity to learn Objective-C and the OpenStep specification, before I switch to Mac OS X. I seem very impressed by the development environment, and as soon as I build up my C programming skills and learn Objective-C, I'll be developing programs, too.
I only wish, though, that GNUstep was a bit more popular among developers. GNUstep seems to lack programs such as web browsers, word processors, and spreadsheets. Porting applications such as Firefox, Abiword, and Gnumeric, for example, would be difficult because those applications are written in C++, not in C. (GNUstep still doesn't support Objective-C++, because of some difficulties that Apple and GCC has with Apple's Objective-C++ implementation). Even so, I feel that GNUstep has the potential to become a very powerful and influential platform for developers. If it can build its developer base and developers start building applications that are just as good, or better, than what NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP offered, just imagine the possibilities....
Re:Interesting how this post appears.... (Score:2)
If you're not too much into programming: The same interface as visible in the Flash demo, can be used to code with AppleScript!
Bert
Re:Interesting how this post appears.... (Score:4, Informative)
C++, however, is not a proper subset of Objective-C and you can't mix the two. That means that you have to drop down to the least common denominator, C, and write a bunch of glue between the two which makes for a royal pain in doing any integration.
Apple solves this with Objective-C++, which lets you mix the two, but for now it's an Apple-only language.
Re:Interesting how this post appears.... (Score:2)
I seem to agree. :-)
Too much! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm waiting for the MP/M [z80.de] LiveCD!
Re:Too much! (Score:2)
Re:Too much! (Score:2)
In order for GNUStep to get more developers, it has to convince them that the API will make their jobs easier. The API has been around for 2
Re:Too much! (Score:2)
yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:4, Insightful)
really, it looks terrible.
it is a good framework, and brilliantly implemented in OS X... but this GNU look is really awful! they need artists... LOTS of artists.
i could barely even follow the demo as the IDE and general look of the thing was so confusing and horrible that i wasn't able to even see where the obvious buttons were to press.
they may be doing wonders with implementing the whole framework... but it needs polish.
Seeing the trees, but missing the forest... (Score:5, Insightful)
Writing a complete framework with rich, well thought-out object libraries? Now that is a feat. GNUStep is a lurker project that is getting close to hitting critical mass. They've got the hard stuff done that others are still swinging at but not quite hitting.
No, the GNUStep people have been much more concerned with laying sewer lines, roadways, electrical grids, water, gas, etc. When they get around to picking the color for their street signs, it'll be good.
Some work is already going into theming. [roard.com]
Now that GNUStep is getting really close to being complete, I hope they look at Cairo as a base for doing something similar to Quartz.
-Peter
Re:Seeing the trees, but missing the forest... (Score:4, Informative)
The GNUstep GUI components are in two models, a front, which talks to the program, and a back, which talks to the windowing system. Under X11, there is an xlib backend (which looks hideous) and a libart backend which looks a whole lot nicer. Additionally, work us underway to produce an OpenGL backend, which will almost certainly be faster than using OpenGL via a layer of indirection like Cairo.
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:5, Interesting)
To my eye, for reasons I can't fully explain, at first glance the GNUstep version looks more cluttered and complicated even though some inspection will show all the same UI elements in the same places with the same icons. It's the colors, and the sizing and style of the widgets, and just the general feel given off by the look as a whole.
Jedidiah.
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:2)
Je
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:5, Informative)
I agree, too. Judging by the screenshots, the Mac OS X port looks very attractive and, to my knowledge, follows the Apple Human Interface Guidelines completely. Heck, it looks just as good as the Mail.app bundled with Mac OS X. The GNUstep version, on the other hand, doesn't look as attractive. Assuming that GNUstep applications follow the design of NEXTSTEP applications, it needs some work. The toolbar should look like buttons, not like an Internet Explorer 3.0-esque design. I also don't really like the arrangement of some of the widgets.
This [levenez.com] is an example of the NEXTSTEP Mail.app program. You can see that the GNUMail.app application got many parts right, but its interface still needs some cleaning up to do.
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:5, Interesting)
The big issues I tend to have with GNUstep GUIs are
(1) The big chunky controls. In comparison to the font size all the GNUstep controls are huge boxy things adding to the cluttered look.
(2) List selector widgets: You know the ones, the NeXT file manager used them. They need horizontal scrollbars usually. As far as GUIs go that's not a very efficient or pretty way to manage things. NeXT had some very good ideas. That wasn't one of them. The world has moved on.
(3) Floating menus: MacOS puts the app menus across the top of the screen to "obey Fitt's law", most everyone else has them at the top of the application. GNUstep kindly has them as bizarre free floating objects. Once again, not one of NeXT's better ideas. Can't we move on from slavishly copying NeXT?
(4) Empty scroll troughs: Nice big (due to those huge widget controls) areas of the screen that have no obvious function until you get enough items for the scrollbar to appear. Either put a full size scrollbar in there, or have the scroll widgets appear when required. Again, slavishly copying NeXT even on their "not so good" ideas.
There's a reason no one else took up these particular ideas from NeXT, not even MacOS X which is essentially the next generation NeXT. The reason is that they aren't very good - at the time (early 90s) they looked promising, but we've had GUIs for a long time now, and ideas of what works and what doesn't have come a long way. For some reason GNUstep slavishly follows NeXT even in their foolish early 90s mistakes.
Jedidiah.
Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s (Score:3, Insightful)
One STeP Beyond (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One STeP Beyond (Score:2)
Re:One STeP Beyond (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One STeP Beyond (Score:3, Informative)
That's what you do on OS X, but NeXT (and now Apple) have a patent on that implementation. GNUstep tries to circumvent it by using the small "s" and "t" circles (for "source" and "target") that you see in the video.
I'm not quite sure what you mean he
Re:One STeP Beyond (Score:2)
Drag/dropping code primitives would look just like the demonstrated GUI drag/dropping GUI widgets into a container window. I'd create a new "controller" object, by dragging a the baseclass from a palette and dropping it - creating a controller window as its representation in the IDE GUI
Looks neat, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I do, however, have two minor criticisms.
Firstly, please, please update the look-and-feel. If you want to be taken seriously, don't look like a reject from the 80s. Given GNUsteps modularity, this should be easy enough to do. So, do it. (Tip: application icons should always have labels, because since they're supposed to be unique you can pretty much guarantee they're going to be unfamiliar to someone.)
Secondly, I didn't see any support for layout management in Gorm --- that application was constructed by just placing absolute-sized objects at absolute positions in a window. Please tell me this isn't how you design all applications... because that way leads to inflexible, unscalable, uncustomisable applications, and there's no excuse for that any more. Fixed layouts mean you can't let the user change fonts, because different fonts are different shapes (you can't just scale linearly). Fixed layouts mean wasted screen estate (remember the old Mac file browser dialogues that would float a tiny, eight-line scrollable list in the middle of a 21" monitor?). Fixed layouts are just wrong.
Re:Looks neat, but... (Score:2)
Re:Looks neat, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Like I said in a previous comment, I'm working on Camaelon 2, a pixmap theme engine that lets you have pretty things.. it should be officially released before the end of this month (it already works, I just want to clean up things).
I didn't see any support for layout management in Gorm
Well, I didn't show that part, but that works exactly in Gorm like on InterfaceBuilder on OSX (and imho it's a better model most of the time than the springs). So of course you can have resizable widgets. In addition, GNUstep implements a couple of widgets implemeting the spring resizing model (that's used by Renaissance by the way, an XML framework for describing UI for GNUstep...), so if you *really* want the spring model, you can use it.
Re:Darwin (Score:2)
Re:Have fun, nerds! (Score:2)
A for effort, but D- for execution. It wasn't funny, first because it just wasn't funny, and second because it's God's own cliché: "Hey, I'll pretend not to know about some massively significant event in order simultaneously to perpetuate and to mock the stereotype that people like me are unaware of their surroundings." It was old when one antediluvian nerd said to another antediluvian nerd, "What's this I hear about rain?"
Re:Have fun, nerds! (Score:2)
Re:Man screw that (Score:5, Interesting)
The Windows port more or less works (transparency in images is broken. Everything else seems to work). Additionally there is a bundle (not yet in the release) which creates Windows-style menu bars instead of GNUstep ones for use on platforms like Windows, KDE and GNOME which are designed by people with no clue about Fitts' Law.
Additionally, Cameleon, the theme engine developed by the article submitter is nearing completion (it's been ready in the next week since the middle of January), and it will eventually be tied in with native theme engines for other desktop environments (including Windows) to give a completely native look for GNUstep apps.
Re:Really like NextStep? (Score:2)
Re:Really like NextStep? (Score:2)
Imagine it's 1997 again. Mac OS X is still little more than a dream, but NEXTSTEP has past its prime. If the GNUSTEP of today were transported back to the world of 1997, it would be awfully impressive.
Alas, it's not 1997 any more, and while GNUSTEP gets an A for effort, it has no practical application. It's strictly a hobbyist thing.
Re:And yet there's STILL no distro that (Score:2)
Hellooo? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is developed (apparently) by folks from Intel. It's just that nobody can't be bothered to include it into the kernel.
ACPI spec is publicly available, but nobody can be bothered to fully implement it.
Finally, nice examples of UI are available even within OSS community, yet every distro out there ships with UI that was, it seems, put together by a teenager.
Re:Hellooo? (Score:2)
Re:Hellooo? (Score:2)
Re:And yet there's STILL no distro that (Score:2)
Re:boring demonstration (Score:2)
Re:boring demonstration (Score:4, Interesting)
You could not have. Pointing out your lack of experience doesn't help your argument. Spend a few minutes developing for GNUSTEP/NeXTSTEP/MacOS X or whatever, and see what it actually does and how to use it, and you'll realize why people who are ``with it'' get excited about this kind of stuff. What I've found is that I will spend extra time getting my UI to be perfect (IB lets you not only define your UI in shape, actions, resizing, etc..., but also try it out to see how it acts when its resized, or how the buttons click, etc...).
MacOS X is definitely the direction to follow in software development. Native apps built in xcode with ZeroLink and even dynamic code replacement (i.e. smalltalk-style bug fixing from the debugger without restarting your app). So, no time spent linking, but you can use an arbitrarily large and automatically discovered compile farm while developing rich MVC apps quickly and easily.
Also, see what happens when more palettes are completed. If they had the WebKit palette, for example, they could've done a demo where they created a full-featured web browser in the same time (you can do this on MacOS X with *no* code). In the video that was going around of a NS 3.3 demo in 1992 by Steve Jobs, he created a pretty decent graphical employee database application in just a couple of minutes that would allow you to look up departments (with pictures), and look through the list of employees within that department (with pictures of the employees). Again, with no code.
The openstep objects are great to work with, though. I just ported an app from python to objective C just so I could use the URL loading kit from cocoa. That is a particular thing missing from gnustep that I'd like to get ported over (although, it may be part of the webkit that Apple was working in open source).
I've worked in quite a few GUI kits (raw X11, Motif, tk, awt, swing, morphic, nextstep, probably more I can't think of), and I can assure you the objective C MVC kit wins hands-down so far.
Anyway, give it a shot before you say it's pointless. It's very impressive and has huge potential.
Re:Come on! (Score:5, Insightful)