GNUstep on PinePhone

[Patryk Laurent]

Did anyone else on the list get a PinePhone? I was able to build the latest GNUstep with clang 9 on device using the scripts in plaurent/gnustep-build but haven’t yet figured out how to launch a graphical app.

Does anyone know how to get a GNUstep graphical app running on Ubuntu touch these days?

How do we get GNUstep in our pockets?

Best,
Patryk

[lars.soncho...@hamburg.de]

Best is to ask Nikolaus Schaller, he is supposed to be on this list too, just in case he isn’t anymore I have put him CC.

His website is https://www.goldelico.com dedicated to running GNUstep on mobile devices.

best regards,

Lars

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

I had installed the quantumStep packages through makesd a while ago and it did work out of the Box (32 Bit armhf on 64 Bit Kernel). So there was no challenge to do more for it. Main issues are Kernel drivers for Charger and Telephony.

On The Road

[Patryk Laurent]

Hi Nikolaus,

On Jun 11, 2020, at 00:15, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <h...@goldelico.com> wrote:

I had installed the quantumStep packages through makesd a while ago and it did work out of the Box (32 Bit armhf on 64 Bit Kernel). So there was no challenge to do more for it. Main issues are Kernel drivers for Charger and Telephony.

Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure I follow: are you suggesting to install a different OS than Ubuntu Touch?

Are these instructions for the process you are referring to: https://projects.goldelico.com/p/quantumstep/page/Installation/

I built GNUstep from source on the PinePhone and was wondering how to configure a graphical app that I compiled to launch...

Thank you,

Patryk

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Patryk,

Am 12.06.2020 um 01:24 schrieb Patryk Laurent <plau...@me.com>:

Hi Nikolaus,

On Jun 11, 2020, at 00:15, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <h...@goldelico.com> wrote:

I had installed the quantumStep packages through makesd a while ago and it did work out of the Box (32 Bit armhf on 64 Bit Kernel). So there was no challenge to do more for it. Main issues are Kernel drivers for Charger and Telephony.

Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure I follow: are you suggesting to install a different OS than Ubuntu Touch?

It depends on what you want to do.

QuantumSTEP uses standard Debian plus a repository for the QuantumSTEP packages which means you do not have to config/make/install anything yourself. Just apt-get install quantumstep.

But you can of course install GNUstep on top of some other OS like Ubuntu Touch.

Are these instructions for the process you are referring to: https://projects.goldelico.com/p/quantumstep/page/Installation/

Basically yes, but to easily get a bootable µSD card (with a fresh install of Debian and QuantumSTEP), use makesd from

https://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-makesd/

If I remember correctly "makesd pinephone -r quantumstep" should suffice (I haven't tested for a while).

BTW: there is also a similar setup for the RasPi 3B+.

But note that QuantumSTEP is not GNUstep. It shares some frameworks and code and some apps but is based on a 20 years old fork and has developed its own life. So there are other bugs remaining and some aspects are solved very differently (e.g. the build system for applications and the X11 backends). You should see it more as a feasibility study what Apple could have done by not inventing iOS but integrating MacOS into the iPhones right from the beginning... IMHO useability would be the same as with iOS (it is a fairy tale that a mobile device needs a completely different GUI toolkit and Apps have to be designed twice) and they could have saved 10 years to merge MacOS and iOS by never separating them.

I built GNUstep from source on the PinePhone and was wondering how to configure a graphical app that I compiled to launch...

Well, there is no difference to a desktop system where you compile it from source. Having a smartphone like the PinePhone is just a Laptop without keyboard and a single-button touch instead of mouse. And the display is in portrait format. Otherwise it is a computer like any other. So there is nothing special running Apps on smartphones and using GNUstep (or derivates) on a portable device.

BR,

Nikolaus