GNUstep distro

[Liam Proven]

This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.

Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?

I have been experimenting with Window Maker and many of the GNUstep
apps recently, but my efforts to find a desktop distro based around
this have been in vain. I am aware of Window Maker Live and Simply
GNUstep, but both are now very dated indeed.

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.

However, there are some problems which suggest to me that the
components in the Debian repos are long-neglected.

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.

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.

The closest seems to be the Étoilé project, but to put it mildly, they
really do not embrace the "release early, release often" mantra.
AFAICS they have never released so much as a demo version in around a
decade of work!

Would anyone be interested in helping me to produce a Window Maker-
and GNUstep-based Ubuntu remix, at all? I am collating the tools but I
am not very experienced in this area...

--
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884

[Sebastian Reitenbach]

On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 17:32 CEST, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>
> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>
> I have been experimenting with Window Maker and many of the GNUstep
> apps recently, but my efforts to find a desktop distro based around
> this have been in vain. I am aware of Window Maker Live and Simply
> GNUstep, but both are now very dated indeed.

If you don't mind running BSD, there is OpenBSD ;)


Install it, put this into your .profile:
VERSION=5.3
export PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.eu.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/${VERSION}/packages/`uname -m`/

source that file, run:

sudo pkg_add -i gnustep-desktop

afterward, put this into your .xsession:

if [ -f /usr/local/share/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh ];then
. /usr/local/share/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
fi

export GNUSTEP_STRING_ENCODING=NSUTF8StringEncoding
export LC_ALL='en_EN.UTF-8'
export LC_CTYPE='en_US.UTF-8'
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/gpbs ];then
/usr/local/bin/gpbs
fi
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/gdnc ];then
/usr/local/bin/gdnc
fi
wmaker &

if [ -x /usr/local/bin/GWorkspace ];then
/usr/local/bin/make_services
/usr/local/bin/GWorkspace
fi


Then login, and enjoy your GNUstep desktop ;)

Note: OpenBSD 5.3, comes with GNUstep from about a year ago.
Since the last release, and the freshly released/updates apps and libs,
happened just too late for the release cycle.

If you want to have the latest greatest, you should install OpenBSD from
snapshots ;)

>
> 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.
>
> However, there are some problems which suggest to me that the
> components in the Debian repos are long-neglected.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.

A GWorkspace user-guide, you may find here:
http://gnustep.made-it.com/Guides/GWorkspace.html

cheers,
Sebastian

>
> The closest seems to be the Étoilé project, but to put it mildly, they
> really do not embrace the "release early, release often" mantra.
> AFAICS they have never released so much as a demo version in around a
> decade of work!
>
> Would anyone be interested in helping me to produce a Window Maker-
> and GNUstep-based Ubuntu remix, at all? I am collating the tools but I
> am not very experienced in this area...
>
> --
> Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
> Email: lpr...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
> MSN: lpr...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
> Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884
>

> _______________________________________________
> Discuss-gnustep mailing list
> Discuss...@gnu.org
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep

[Sebastian Reitenbach]

Since the last release, and the freshly released/updates apps and libs,happened just too late for the release cycle.

If you want to have the latest greatest, you should install OpenBSD from
snapshots ;)

I forgot, here is a list of GNUstep based ports that get installed
when you install the gnustep-desktop meta package:
http://readme.portsbug.me.uk/cat/x11/gnustep

[Dan Hitt]

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
.....

>
> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>

.......<<< many interesting and valid points omitted >>>

>
> The closest seems to be the Étoilé project, but to put it mildly, they
> really do not embrace the "release early, release often" mantra.
> AFAICS they have never released so much as a demo version in around a
> decade of work!
>
> Would anyone be interested in helping me to produce a Window Maker-
> and GNUstep-based Ubuntu remix, at all? I am collating the tools but I
> am not very experienced in this area...
>

Hi Liam (and Sebastian),

Although i doubt i can give you any useful help whatsoever, if you do
produce a Window Maker/GNUstep/Ubuntu remix, and you provide
instructions for installing it on a partition of a GPT hard drive, i
will certainly
do that, and let you know of any bugs i find.

That's my most important point, and if you do form a project of some
sort, please put me on the mailing list.

Now, as a secondary point:

I would like nothing better than to use a modern, capable system
(meaning, multi-simultaneous-user, including standard tools such
as emacs and ssh at least on the command line) with a well-supported
gui that has a well-defined API for programming (graphical) applications.

A GNUstep-based system should fit the bill, because at the least it
has a good design
and a well-defined API. But on ubuntu, at least, support for GNUstep
is at best an after thought (as your message points out).

What would be useful would be to pop in a cd, install an os on some partition,
and have it run GNUstep, ready to use, ready to program, out of the box.

Sebastian --- thanks for your remarks also, regarding OpenBSD.

I was interested in that at one time, and i'd still be interested in trying
it out, but iirc, there's some issue with partitioning. I have a system
alrleady, partitioned with GPT (so that the disk can be large and have
many, many primary partitions, and can be managed with grub2). If
it is possible to put OpenBSD on a partition on a disk that is shared
with various versions of ubuntu and debian, then i would go for it, at
least to try it out. But i think there may be some issue with the *BSD
using a different scheme for partitioning, and maybe a non-grub bootloader
also.

As a final point, which i don't want to say too much about, because
the point of this list is GNUstep ---- lots of people have noticed this lack
of a gui/lack of a well-defined api in the free world, and have addressed
it in various ways. For example, there's Haiku and Syllable and AROS.
And even in the ubuntu-derivative world ubuntu would like to have an api,
and there are projects such as ElementaryOS, which is what i'm using now.
So there's a need, and people are groping towards a solution, but imvho
a GNUstep-focused distro (whether linux or *BSD or other) could really
help fill it.

(I think that a combinatorial explosion of different OS base layers,
with different default packages and even packaging systems, will
have more trouble in filling the need.)

My 2 cents only!

And not wanting to second guess all those working hard in the field!

dan

[Abhi Beckert]

>> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>

> If you don't mind running BSD, there is OpenBSD ;)
>

> [...]

>
> Note: OpenBSD 5.3, comes with GNUstep from about a year ago.
> Since the last release, and the freshly released/updates apps and libs,
> happened just too late for the release cycle.
>
> If you want to have the latest greatest, you should install OpenBSD from
> snapshots ;)

What is the best process to get a recent OpenBSD snapshot running inside VirtualBox on a Mac?

I'm keen to port some of my mac projects to GNUstep but every time I work on it I get blocked on installing a recent version of GNUstep.

- Abhi

[Riccardo Mottola]

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. There are
several Linux and BSD distributions which provide packages of GNUstep
apps, of varying quality and breadth. Richard Stonehouse provides a
bootable VM image which is quite nice.

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.

> 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!
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)

> 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.

Riccardo

[Liam Proven]

On 9 May 2013 08:27, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it> 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]

I just noticed that I inadvertently replied offlist - sorry...

On 8 May 2013 18:41, Sebastian Reitenbach <seba...@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 17:32 CEST, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>>
>> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>>

>> I have been experimenting with Window Maker and many of the GNUstep
>> apps recently, but my efforts to find a desktop distro based around
>> this have been in vain. I am aware of Window Maker Live and Simply
>> GNUstep, but both are now very dated indeed.
>

> If you don't mind running BSD, there is OpenBSD ;)

It's not that I /mind/ running BSD, but the last couple of times I
tried FreeBSD -- generally regarded as easier, friendlier & more
compatible than OpenBSD -- I couldn't even get it to open a TCP/IP
connection or install X.11, let alone anything else.

Meanwhile, Ubuntu is the world's second most popular desktop *nix
these days, after Mac OS X. In my experience and recent experiments,
its compatibility and ease of installation is considerably better than
that of its parent Debian, and as such, it is roughly 15y more
advanced, sophisticated and polished than FreeBSD. Of OpenBSD, I
cannot say.

I've only been using, installing, supporting and maintaining Unix
systems since 1988, though, so I am still a bit of a newbie.

So, realistically, no, sorry, but OpenBSD is not a realistic option.
In my professional assessment, the *buntu family is currently the most
mature and widely-supported free desktop OS. OpenSUSE is a bit of a
bloated mess with a rather horrible package manager, Fedora is a
rolling alpha-test, Slackware is deliberately primitive, and most of
the others are far too immature. It's Ubuntu or nothing.

Saying that, I will have a go at getting the OpenBSD GNUstep desktop
up and running in a virtual machine, if only to have a look at the
dependencies.

>> 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.
>
>

> A GWorkspace user-guide, you may find here:
> http://gnustep.made-it.com/Guides/GWorkspace.html

Thank you.

I have already read it, actually. AFAICS it does not answer any of my
questions, such as how to add apps to the Dock or how to customise the
desktop menu. If you have any pointers there, I would really
appreciate them!

[Liam Proven]

On 8 May 2013 21:36, Sebastian Reitenbach <seba...@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:

>
> On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 22:11 CEST, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 8 May 2013 18:41, Sebastian Reitenbach <seba...@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 17:32 CEST, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>> >>
>> >> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>> >>
>> >> I have been experimenting with Window Maker and many of the GNUstep
>> >> apps recently, but my efforts to find a desktop distro based around
>> >> this have been in vain. I am aware of Window Maker Live and Simply
>> >> GNUstep, but both are now very dated indeed.
>> >
>> > If you don't mind running BSD, there is OpenBSD ;)
>>
>> It's not that I /mind/ running BSD, but the last couple of times I
>> tried FreeBSD -- generally regarded as easier, friendlier & more
>> compatible than OpenBSD -- I couldn't even get it to open a TCP/IP
>> connection or install X.11, let alone anything else.
>

> The last times I tried Free or NetBSD, I ended up in horrible adventures ;)
> But maybe I'm just too used to the ease of use and the sane defaults in
> OpenBSD ;)
>
> X is included in the base system, and usually "just works".
> I own a lot of machines, and on none of them, I have to tweak Xorg.conf
> Also with networking, you just configure it via installing, and you are done.

Interesting! I will download it and give it a try.

I have an old Thinkpad that is not very compatible - Linux runs on it,
not well, and Windows, and FreeBSD and /nothing/ else. All alternative
OSes I have tried will not boot. I may give OpenBSD a go! :¬)

>> Meanwhile, Ubuntu is the world's second most popular desktop *nix
>> these days, after Mac OS X. In my experience and recent experiments,
>> its compatibility and ease of installation is considerably better than
>> that of its parent Debian, and as such, it is roughly 15y more
>> advanced, sophisticated and polished than FreeBSD. Of OpenBSD, I
>> cannot say.
>>
>> I've only been using, installing, supporting and maintaining Unix
>> systems since 1988, though, so I am still a bit of a newbie.
>>
>> So, realistically, no, sorry, but OpenBSD is not a realistic option.
>> In my professional assessment, the *buntu family is currently the most
>> mature and widely-supported free desktop OS. OpenSUSE is a bit of a
>> bloated mess with a rather horrible package manager, Fedora is a
>> rolling alpha-test, Slackware is deliberately primitive, and most of
>> the others are far too immature. It's Ubuntu or nothing.
>>
>> Saying that, I will have a go at getting the OpenBSD GNUstep desktop
>> up and running in a virtual machine, if only to have a look at the
>> dependencies.
>

> If you do not want to install, take a look here:
> http://readme.portsbug.me.uk/cat/x11/gnustep

Thanks for the info.

>> >> 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.
>> >
>> >
>> > A GWorkspace user-guide, you may find here:
>> > http://gnustep.made-it.com/Guides/GWorkspace.html
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> I have already read it, actually. AFAICS it does not answer any of my
>> questions, such as how to add apps to the Dock or how to customise the
>> desktop menu. If you have any pointers there, I would really
>> appreciate them!
>

> You can just drag 'n drop the .app folders from the FileViewer to the Dock.

Aha! But perhaps only .app folders? I will try it again. I could not
drag ordinary Linux applications to it, this I had found...

> About the menus, I don't know.

OK, fair enough. Thanks for the information!

[Liam Proven]

On 8 May 2013 21:53, Dan Hitt <dan....@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> .....
>>

>> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>>

> .......<<< many interesting and valid points omitted >>>
>>
>> The closest seems to be the Étoilé project, but to put it mildly, they
>> really do not embrace the "release early, release often" mantra.
>> AFAICS they have never released so much as a demo version in around a
>> decade of work!
>>
>> Would anyone be interested in helping me to produce a Window Maker-
>> and GNUstep-based Ubuntu remix, at all? I am collating the tools but I
>> am not very experienced in this area...
>>
>
> Hi Liam (and Sebastian),
>
> Although i doubt i can give you any useful help whatsoever, if you do
> produce a Window Maker/GNUstep/Ubuntu remix, and you provide
> instructions for installing it on a partition of a GPT hard drive, i
> will certainly
> do that, and let you know of any bugs i find.

Hmm. That is an interesting problem. I do not own any drives larger
than 1GB, nor an Intel Macintosh, so I have no experience with GPT. If
I were to go ahead with an Ubuntu remix, then it would become a
question of whether Ubuntu supported this, which I don't know. I
presume that it is possible but I am not sure.

> That's my most important point, and if you do form a project of some
> sort, please put me on the mailing list.

Noted. :¬)

> Now, as a secondary point:
>
> I would like nothing better than to use a modern, capable system
> (meaning, multi-simultaneous-user, including standard tools such
> as emacs and ssh at least on the command line) with a well-supported
> gui that has a well-defined API for programming (graphical) applications.

Hmm. I am not sure I would regard Emacs as a standard app - it is not
a standard part of Ubuntu, although it is in the repos. I have been
experimenting recently with ErgoEmacs, which I like more than any
other Linux version I have seen. I could include that, I suppose, but
it does not integrate with GNUstep or Window Maker, not AFAIK.

> A GNUstep-based system should fit the bill, because at the least it
> has a good design
> and a well-defined API. But on ubuntu, at least, support for GNUstep
> is at best an after thought (as your message points out).

Well, quite.

> What would be useful would be to pop in a cd, install an os on some partition,
> and have it run GNUstep, ready to use, ready to program, out of the box.

I agree.

> Sebastian --- thanks for your remarks also, regarding OpenBSD.
>
> I was interested in that at one time, and i'd still be interested in trying
> it out, but iirc, there's some issue with partitioning. I have a system
> alrleady, partitioned with GPT (so that the disk can be large and have
> many, many primary partitions, and can be managed with grub2). If
> it is possible to put OpenBSD on a partition on a disk that is shared
> with various versions of ubuntu and debian, then i would go for it, at
> least to try it out. But i think there may be some issue with the *BSD
> using a different scheme for partitioning, and maybe a non-grub bootloader
> also.

Indeed so. All the BSDs have /extremely/ poor support for non-BSD disk
partitioning, and in my discussions with BSD users and advocates, they
are unable to see that this is not only a problem but a serious
problem which severely hinders their uptake.

Meantime, I can only suggest running them inside a VM - this works
very well these days. VirtualBox is FOSS and runs well on Linux,
Windows and Mac OS X.

> As a final point, which i don't want to say too much about, because
> the point of this list is GNUstep ---- lots of people have noticed this lack
> of a gui/lack of a well-defined api in the free world, and have addressed
> it in various ways. For example, there's Haiku and Syllable and AROS.
> And even in the ubuntu-derivative world ubuntu would like to have an api,
> and there are projects such as ElementaryOS, which is what i'm using now.
> So there's a need, and people are groping towards a solution, but imvho
> a GNUstep-focused distro (whether linux or *BSD or other) could really
> help fill it.

I think it is probably too little, too late, to be honest.
Fragmentation of APIs and so on in the Unix world is one of its
endemic problems and it is getting worse, not better. The answer, if
there is one at all, probably lies in abstraction, e.g. via the JVM,
whether running Java or something else.

> (I think that a combinatorial explosion of different OS base layers,
> with different default packages and even packaging systems, will
> have more trouble in filling the need.)

Indeed so.

> My 2 cents only!
>
> And not wanting to second guess all those working hard in the field!

:¬)

I think we are in broad agreement here.

[Richard Stonehouse]

>On 9 May 2013 08:27, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it>
>wrote:

>> 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.

It used to work in VirtualBox under Linux - see:
www.rstonehouse.co.uk/extras/GNUstep-VM-0.9
You need to download both the .ovf and the .vmdk file, probably the
.mf file too.

Can you tell me what version of VBox you're using and what platform
you're running on?

As a possible alternative, I've had it working under a recent VMware
Player (though only tried under MS Windows).

>> Richard makes his RPM packages public too.

My RPM packages that are available just now are rather old, built for
gnustep-make 2.6.0 etc on an openSUSE 11.4 platform. I'm building a
set of the latest GNUstep releases on openSUSE 12.3 and hope to have
at least some of them available in the next week or two. I think Fred
Kiefer has GNUstep RPM packages available on the openSUSE Build
Service.


--
Richard Stonehouse

[Liam Proven]

On 9 May 2013 16:34, Richard Stonehouse <ric...@rstonehouse.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 9 May 2013 08:27, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it> wrote:
>
>>> 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.
>
> It used to work in VirtualBox under Linux - see:
> www.rstonehouse.co.uk/extras/GNUstep-VM-0.9
> You need to download both the .ovf and the .vmdk file, probably the .mf file
> too.

Aha! Thanks for the reply!

Yes, I downloaded all 3 and put them in a directory of their own and
tried to import them as described, although I used the "import
appliance" menu option rather than the CLI.

When importing, I get an error that the VMDK file is already attached.
If I create a new VM and tell it to use the VMDK as its hard disk,
VBox complains that it is invalid -- it cannot read its size, free
space or anything else.

> Can you tell me what version of VBox you're using and what platform you're
> running on?

Latest VBox (4.2.12 r84980) on the latest Ubuntu (13.04), 64-bit, on a
Core 2 Quad Extreme with 8GB RAM, 1TB HD. So plenty of room.

> As a possible alternative, I've had it working under a recent VMware Player
> (though only tried under MS Windows).

[Nod] I have not yet reinstalled VMware Player - I prefer to use FOSS
tools if possible - but this was my next plan. I'm busy on something
else right now, though.

>>> Richard makes his RPM packages public too.
>
> My RPM packages that are available just now are rather old, built for
> gnustep-make 2.6.0 etc on an openSUSE 11.4 platform. I'm building a set of
> the latest GNUstep releases on openSUSE 12.3 and hope to have at least some
> of them available in the next week or two. I think Fred Kiefer has GNUstep
> RPM packages available on the openSUSE Build Service.

I don't have OpenSUSE running any more - after some years with it as
my main OS, I switched away in 2004 when Ubuntu first appeared and
have not regretted it for an instant. :¬)

(I must confess that for the first year or 2, I kept a parallel
install of the current OpenSUSE so that I could configure my twin
screens -- originally on a pair of Matrox cards, later on a single
Matrox G550 -- under OpenSUSE and then copy across the XFree86/X.Org
conf file.)

I really do not miss YAST at all. ;¬) Once I learned APT, I could not
stomach YAST2 at all any more. Red Hat's YUM is catching up these days
but I favour the more mature tool. Also, RHEL is too expensive, CentOS
is free but always rather behind the times, and Fedora is too unstable
for me.

However, I'll see if I can locate the packages to which you refer and
will spin up a SUSE VM to give it a try.

[Dan Hitt]

On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 7:30 AM, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8 May 2013 21:53, Dan Hitt <dan....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> .....

>> Although i doubt i can give you any useful help whatsoever, if you do
>> produce a Window Maker/GNUstep/Ubuntu remix, and you provide
>> instructions for installing it on a partition of a GPT hard drive, i
>> will certainly
>> do that, and let you know of any bugs i find.
>
> Hmm. That is an interesting problem. I do not own any drives larger
> than 1GB, nor an Intel Macintosh, so I have no experience with GPT. If
> I were to go ahead with an Ubuntu remix, then it would become a
> question of whether Ubuntu supported this, which I don't know. I
> presume that it is possible but I am not sure.

I'm guessing that must be a typo above for 1T.

Anyhow, if you get a 3T drive and install ubuntu (say 12.04) on it,
and let it format the disk, it will put GPT on it (since 3T is too large
for the old msdos style formatting).

And gparted will let you resize and add partitions.

It is amazingly easy to use (so, for example, i have at least
a dozen partitions on my 3T drive, with different OSes).

> .....

> Hmm. I am not sure I would regard Emacs as a standard app - it is not
> a standard part of Ubuntu, although it is in the repos. I have been
> experimenting recently with ErgoEmacs, which I like more than any
> other Linux version I have seen. I could include that, I suppose, but
> it does not integrate with GNUstep or Window Maker, not AFAIK.
>

This is getting more in the weeds i guess, and is a small point ---- if
you have a good solution for putting GNUstep on a bsd or a linux
(especially an ubuntu derivative) it would be an awesome service to
the community. I could certainly do 'sudo apt-get install emacs'
or the equivalent.

But on this small point, it's not that i think of emacs as a standard app.

In fact, i don't think of it as an application at all --- and least not an
application in the same sense that the old great NeXTstep graphical
programs were applications. And in fact, although i keep emacs
running all the time (from the time the machine boots up until it reboots),
i do not use any graphical version of emacs, because as a gui sort
of program, it's not very good at all, imvho. gimp and krita and firefox
and all the programs like this, though not as good as GNUstep could be,
are far better than emacs, as applications.

However, for me, emacs is an absolutely indispensable tool for editing files,
running shells, managing code, doing compilation, and just staying
organized.

And emacs comes on every macintosh --- the command line version, not
any gui version [although gui versions are available].

So i think the people at apple know something: even though apparently
they wouldn't dream of bundling emacs as an app, they make certain
to bundle it as a tool. Xcode you have to put on yourself, but not emacs
(at least as of 2011).

Not meaning to rant here, or tell anybody how they ought to write or
compile their code, but i think of emacs support as a sort of test
for how ready a system is. (And this is validated by Cupertino :).)

And thanks again for thoroughly investigating the GNUstep situation.

I've certainly never dealt with a more productivity-enhancing system
than NeXTstep, and if GNUstep could be easily deployed in a non-broken
way that would just be wonderful.

dan

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi,

Am 08.05.2013 um 17:32 schrieb Liam Proven:

> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>

> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?

There is also the QuantumSTEP project. It is sort of a twin to GNUstep,
sharing some source code fragments. And sometimes it is completely
independent.

Its idea is to use a Debian base installation with X11 and then just
apt-get install all the packages needed. I.e. no other config required.
apt-get upgrade loads newer versions.

The packages are cross-compiled for armel, armhf, i386, mipsel
to link against the standard Debian Wheezy packages.

It is X11 based but has its own window manager, so that it is more difficult
to mix non-QuantumStep applications.

This is because its main target are smart phones and tablets where
arbitrary applications and window managers are rarely optimized for
unusual screen dimensions and orientations. So arbitrary applications
are typically not useable completely.

QuantumSTEP is still work in progress. And one or two fundamental
mechanisms are missing before we can make a first general release.
And the most interesting armhf build is currently broken and incomplete.

If you are interested I can help you to experiment with a "beta".

BR,
Nikolaus

[James Carthew]

I think your best bet is to download debian and download the gnustep debian source packages, update the contents and then build newer versions of the packages and install them. That, and installing the newest llvm/clang/gnustep packages from source.

On 9 May 2013 17:27, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it> 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. There are several Linux and BSD distributions which provide  packages of GNUstep apps, of varying quality and breadth. Richard Stonehouse provides a bootable VM image which is quite nice.

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.

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!

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)

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.

Riccardo

[Liam Proven]

On 8 May 2013 21:36, Sebastian Reitenbach <seba...@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 22:11 CEST, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 8 May 2013 18:41, Sebastian Reitenbach <seba...@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:
>> >

>> > On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 17:32 CEST, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>> >>
>> >> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>> >>

>> >> I have been experimenting with Window Maker and many of the GNUstep
>> >> apps recently, but my efforts to find a desktop distro based around
>> >> this have been in vain. I am aware of Window Maker Live and Simply
>> >> GNUstep, but both are now very dated indeed.
>> >
>> > If you don't mind running BSD, there is OpenBSD ;)
>>
>> It's not that I /mind/ running BSD, but the last couple of times I
>> tried FreeBSD -- generally regarded as easier, friendlier & more
>> compatible than OpenBSD -- I couldn't even get it to open a TCP/IP
>> connection or install X.11, let alone anything else.
>
> The last times I tried Free or NetBSD, I ended up in horrible adventures ;)

Yes, me too. Or at least that's one way of putting it!

> But maybe I'm just too used to the ease of use and the sane defaults in
> OpenBSD ;)
>
> X is included in the base system, and usually "just works".
> I own a lot of machines, and on none of them, I have to tweak Xorg.conf
> Also with networking, you just configure it via installing, and you are done.

Just for the record...

I used "install53.iso" to get OpenBSD running in a VirtualBox VM. It
was surprisingly trouble-free and as promised did indeed configure
X.11, networking and fvwm straight off the ISO. To my surprise, it was
much more helpful and cooperative than FreeBSD.

Fvwm was a bit of a shock, though. It felt like going back to about 1993. O_o

I then followed your instructions to add the gnustep-desktop packages.
It took 3 or 4 retries to fetch them all; I just kept reissuing the
command until it completed successfully.

I also installed Firefox -- guessing the package name -- to copy &
paste your login script, as I did not want to retype the whole thing.
There are no VirtualBox guest additions for OpenBSD so I could not cut
& paste them from the host machine.

Sadly, Window Maker gets into severe problems as soon as it's run,
with the main menu flickering madly as it is continually redrawn. It
is not possible to pick anything off the menus.

[Liam Proven]

On 9 May 2013 16:34, Richard Stonehouse <ric...@rstonehouse.co.uk> wrote:
>
> As a possible alternative, I've had it working under a recent VMware Player
> (though only tried under MS Windows).

Just for the record - I tried last night with VMware Player.

Your instructions are a little out of date. I spent some time
mystified as to why I couldn't install the OVF convertor. It kept
saying that it was already installed, which it very definitely wasn't.

In the end I decided to just try opening the downloaded VM directly,
which worked - VMware Player now includes OVF import, so you don't
need the separate convertor tool and that's why it wouldn't install.

The VM runs rather nicely under VMware, but unfortunately, I can't
`sudo` (don't know the root password) and so I can't install the
VMware guest additions, meaning that I can't reset the screen
resolution or anything.

I found it slightly odd that, in a desktop with a Dock included, you
made all the app launchers desktop icons - that's one of the things
the Dock is for, isn't it? :¬)

[Liam Proven]

On 10 May 2013 07:05, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <h...@goldelico.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am 08.05.2013 um 17:32 schrieb Liam Proven:
>

>> This may be a silly question - forgive me if so.
>>
>> Is there a current GNUstep-based distribution, at all?
>

> There is also the QuantumSTEP project. It is sort of a twin to GNUstep,
> sharing some source code fragments. And sometimes it is completely
> independent.
>
> Its idea is to use a Debian base installation with X11 and then just
> apt-get install all the packages needed. I.e. no other config required.
> apt-get upgrade loads newer versions.
>
> The packages are cross-compiled for armel, armhf, i386, mipsel
> to link against the standard Debian Wheezy packages.
>
> It is X11 based but has its own window manager, so that it is more difficult
> to mix non-QuantumStep applications.
>
> This is because its main target are smart phones and tablets where
> arbitrary applications and window managers are rarely optimized for
> unusual screen dimensions and orientations. So arbitrary applications
> are typically not useable completely.
>
> QuantumSTEP is still work in progress. And one or two fundamental
> mechanisms are missing before we can make a first general release.
> And the most interesting armhf build is currently broken and incomplete.
>
> If you are interested I can help you to experiment with a "beta".

Thank you for the offer, but I do not own any suitable hardware and I
am not sure that my technical skills are sufficient to offer any
useful input. :¬(

[Ivan Vučica]

On 10. 5. 2013., at 14:14, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I also installed Firefox -- guessing the package name -- to copy &
> paste your login script, as I did not want to retype the whole thing.
> There are no VirtualBox guest additions for OpenBSD so I could not cut
> & paste them from the host machine.

Tip: It is my understanding that OpenSSH originates from the OpenBSD... :-)

Regards,

Ivan Vučica
via phone

[Liam Proven]

Ahahahaha! True! "How extremely stupid not to think of that," as T H
Huxley once said.

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

There is also an i386 build. Care has been taken for small screens but
it also works on big screens.

-- hns

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

I think we are getting a bit out of topic of GNUstep here. If you have
particular problems with specific distros, get help from the respective
forums.
For example, personally, I consider Ubuntu a bad linux distribution and
for the GNUstep packages it has the last time I checked it is just
"debian stuff".

Debian for me works out of the Box and windowmaker menus work with all
its fine apps getting added too, no patches neeed, this also in testing
and unstable versions.

On 05/10/13 14:14, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 8 May 2013 21:36, Sebastian Reitenbach <seba...@l00-bugdead-prods.de> wrote:
>>
>> The last times I tried Free or NetBSD, I ended up in horrible adventures ;)
> Yes, me too. Or at least that's one way of putting it!

For me NetBSD was always a breeze to isntall, quick fast... No "stuff to
remove" as happens on most distributions.
OpenBSD too, FreeBSd even easier!
Perhaps the only thing I regret about all these (but this includes
linux) is support for wireless cards...

>
> Just for the record... Sadly, Window Maker gets into severe problems

> as soon as it's run, with the main menu flickering madly as it is
> continually redrawn. It is not possible to pick anything off the menus.

I use windowmaker on OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux/Gentoo,
Linux/Debian and it works fine!

Riccardo

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi Liam,

On 05/10/13 14:20, Liam Proven wrote:

The VM runs rather nicely under VMware, but unfortunately, I can't
`sudo` (don't know the root password) and so I can't install the
VMware guest additions, meaning that I can't reset the screen
resolution or anything.

Sudo uses your user password...

Developer (password GNUstep) :)

I found it slightly odd that, in a desktop with a Dock included, you
made all the app launchers desktop icons - that's one of the things
the Dock is for, isn't it? :¬)

I don't think that it is for that, Apple users tend to use it for that :) The dock is mostly for running stuff. Or you end with an infinite dock bar, I consider it bad usage. On my mack i never have more than a dozen of items  On GWorkspace you also have the tabbed shelf, with convenient tabs.
Also, the desktop is more suitable for a lot of applications and works also well for smaller screens, like a VM can have.

At the end there are so many different ways that it it is almost confusing, to anyone its own.

Riccardo

[Liam Proven]

On 10 May 2013 17:34, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think we are getting a bit out of topic of GNUstep here. If you have
> particular problems with specific distros, get help from the respective
> forums.

I do not have particular problems with particular distros.

I might be having problems with apparently out-of-date GNUstep
packages in them. I think that is something that really should concern
the GNUstep developers. If I am not mistaken, you are one of these.

> For example, personally, I consider Ubuntu a bad linux distribution

Why?

It is the world's leading FOSS OS, with the most mature and polished
package-management on any Unix. It is the obvious and logical choice
if one were to try to build a populist GNUstep-based OS.

> and for
> the GNUstep packages it has the last time I checked it is just "debian
> stuff".

That seems fair - but if those packages are out of date, then this is
something which should be of great concern to the GNUstep team.

> Debian for me works out of the Box

It's better than it was, certainly. It's still not perfect, though. I
have several Debian machines and all have problems that Ubuntu doesn't
have on the same hardware. E.g. unsupported NICs, unable to select
between multiple sound cards, missing proprietary firmware whose lack
makes it impossible to download the missing drivers.

> and windowmaker menus work with all its
> fine apps getting added too, no patches neeed, this also in testing and
> unstable versions.

WMaker has a known bug in the Debian family. I've posted links. I've
replicated this, personally, *this morning* on Ubuntu 13.04 and it is
the same bug that has been present since 10.10 and was in Debian 5 and
6.

The links I've already posted describe the problem and how to fix it.

> For me NetBSD was always a breeze to isntall, quick fast... No "stuff to
> remove" as happens on most distributions.
> OpenBSD too, FreeBSd even easier!

Good for you. Clearly your UNIX skills far exceed mine. I have only
tried NetBSD once but I could not get past a basic CLI bare core OS.

FreeBSD, ditto, repeated with v5, 6, 7, 8 & 9. (I don't give up easily.)

I find them horribly primitive and pretty much unusable myself, but I
am very happy that others like something basic, stripped-back, simple
and retro-style.

Me, I just want my computer to work with the minimum of fuss. Therefore, Ubuntu.

> Perhaps the only thing I regret about all these (but this includes linux) is
> support for wireless cards...

Indeed, this is a major issue.

>> Just for the record... Sadly, Window Maker gets into severe problems as
>> soon as it's run, with the main menu flickering madly as it is continually
>> redrawn. It is not possible to pick anything off the menus.
>
> I use windowmaker on OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux/Gentoo,
> Linux/Debian and it works fine!

I speak only of the specific instructions in this thread from
Sebastiano, nothing more general.

I know WM is fine - I have it on at least 5 machines.

In my OpenBSD install, following his instructions, I had the problems
I describe. That is *all* I was talking about.

[Liam Proven]

On 10 May 2013 17:40, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it> wrote:
> Hi Liam,
>
>
> On 05/10/13 14:20, Liam Proven wrote:
>
> The VM runs rather nicely under VMware, but unfortunately, I can't
> `sudo` (don't know the root password) and so I can't install the
> VMware guest additions, meaning that I can't reset the screen
> resolution or anything.
>
> Sudo uses your user password...
>
> Developer (password GNUstep) :)

[Sigh]

I know that. As I said, I have been installing and supporting Unix
systems for 25y now.

In this particular VM, it specifically asks for the password of *root*
and I don't know it. I did of course try the ordinary user password.
If that had worked, I would not have posted anything.

If you do not believe me, please do try it for yourself.

>> I found it slightly odd that, in a desktop with a Dock included, you
>> made all the app launchers desktop icons - that's one of the things
>> the Dock is for, isn't it? :¬)
>
> I don't think that it is for that, Apple users tend to use it for that :)
> The dock is mostly for running stuff. Or you end with an infinite dock bar,
> I consider it bad usage.

Oh! Well, I find that very surprising, but fair enough. Chacun à son goût.

> On my mack i never have more than a dozen of items

I keep my Mac's docks clean too, but there, I have Spotlight for launching apps.

> On GWorkspace you also have the tabbed shelf, with convenient tabs.

Hm. It seems to me that this would lead to many duplicated icons, but
fair enough -- I have not tried it.

> Also, the desktop is more suitable for a lot of applications and works also
> well for smaller screens, like a VM can have.

I guess so. Of course if I'd been able to install the additions, my VM
could run at 1600×1200. :¬)

> At the end there are so many different ways that it it is almost confusing,
> to anyone its own.

Very true.

[Richard Stonehouse]

On Thu, 9 May 2013 17:56:38 +0100, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 9 May 2013 16:34, Richard Stonehouse <ric...@rstonehouse.co.uk>
>wrote:

>>> On 9 May 2013 08:27, Riccardo Mottola <riccardo...@libero.it>

>>> wrote:
>>
>>>> Richard Stonehouse provides a bootable VM image
>>>

>>> It will not import into VirtualBox, nor can VBox mount its hard
>>> disk on its own.
>>
>> It used to work in VirtualBox under Linux - see:
>> www.rstonehouse.co.uk/extras/GNUstep-VM-0.9
>> You need to download both the .ovf and the .vmdk file, probably the
>> .mf file too.

>Yes, I downloaded all 3 and put them in a directory of their own and
>tried to import them as described, although I used the "import
>appliance" menu option rather than the CLI.

I use the menu.

I've now installed VirtualBox (4.2.12 r84980) from the RPM onto the
openSUSE 12.3 system on my 64-bit machine, and imported the VM into
it. There were two problems to do with the Appliance Import Settings;
is either of them what you're getting?

1. When I changed the VM name from 'vm' to 'VM-0.9', VirtualBox
failed to import because it was looking for a file with extension
'.VM-0.9dk' instead of '.vmdk'. I suspect this is a bug in Virtual
Box; it surely shouldn't be messing about with the file extension.
When I changed the VM name back to 'vm', VB found the '.vmdk'
file OK.

2. Forgetting to read my own instructions :-) (see
http://www.rstonehouse.co.uk/extras/GNUstep-VM-0.9/vbimport.html)
I omitted to disable the DVD, and VirtualBox failed to import the
VM because it thought it already had a DVD connected. You have to
disable the DVD in the Appliance Import Settings, then connect
a real DVD or ISO image later if you want one. Again, I think this
is a VirtualBox bug.

After working around these two problems, VirtualBox imported the VM
successfully and it appears to run OK.

>When importing, I get an error that the VMDK file is already
>attached.

Are you sure it's the hard disc it's complaining about and not the
DVD?

>> Can you tell me what version of VBox you're using and what platform
>> you're running on?
>
>Latest VBox (4.2.12 r84980) on the latest Ubuntu (13.04), 64-bit, on
>a Core 2 Quad Extreme with 8GB RAM, 1TB HD. So plenty of room.
>

>> As a possible alternative, I've had it working under a recent
>> VMware Player (though only tried under MS Windows).
>

>[Nod] I have not yet reinstalled VMware Player - I prefer to use FOSS
>tools if possible

Likewise. I originally developed and tested this VM under both VMware
and VirtualBox. Mostly VMware because its performance was more
acceptable; however on my new machine VirtualBox seems to be fine.


On Fri, 10 May 2013 13:20:00 +0100, Liam Proven <lpr...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 9 May 2013 16:34, Richard Stonehouse <ric...@rstonehouse.co.uk>
>wrote:
>>
>> As a possible alternative, I've had it working under a recent VMware Player
>> (though only tried under MS Windows).
>
>Just for the record - I tried last night with VMware Player.
>
>Your instructions are a little out of date.

Thanks for the info, I'll look into that.

>
>The VM runs rather nicely under VMware, but unfortunately, I can't
>`sudo` (don't know the root password) and so I can't install the
>VMware guest additions, meaning that I can't reset the screen
>resolution or anything.

The root password is 'linux' (without the quotes). Full instructions
for installing or upgrading the VMware Tools are at
http://www.rstonehouse.co.uk/extras/GNUstep-VM-0.9/vm-tools.html

>
>I found it slightly odd that, in a desktop with a Dock included, you
>made all the app launchers desktop icons - that's one of the things

>the Dock is for, isn't it? :?)

As one of the purposes of this VM was to show off the features of
GNUstep, it was set up to use the GWorkspace desktop rather than the
WindowMaker desktop. GWorkspace has its own dock and its desktop hides
the WindowMaker dock. If you prefer the WindowMaker desktop, you can
disable the GWorkspace desktop (GWorkspace Tools menu, 'Hide Desktop'
command) and enable the WindowMaker dock (WPrefs utility, 'Workspace
Preferences' pane, click on the upper of the two icons under
'Dock/Clip' at the right hand side). However, it is not possible to
drag and drop files from GWorkspace onto WindowMaker dock icons; you
can only drag and drop onto GWorkspace icons.

--
Richard Stonehouse