Simply GNUstep Delivers UNIX, Simply

Eugenia writes "A new, Linux-based operating system released recently, called Simply GNUstep and it is based on the GNUstep architecture, originally built by NeXT (OpenSTEP) and is now also used by MacOSX (Cocoa). The alpha version of the x86-based OS is available for download and boots off the 110 MB bootable CD. The cool thing about Simply GNUstep is its partial source compatibility with MacOSX programs (further compatibility is still worked on) and its clean infrastructure, as it only includes GnuSTEP graphical applications like WindowMaker, Mail.app etc. You can read an introduction article of the OS at OSNews."

Re:enlighten me

[Glytch]

Low system requirements. Not every machine has the half gig of ram required to run KDE without swapping.

Corrections

[MouseR]

based on the GNUstep architecture, originally built by NeXT (OpenSTEP) and is now also used by MacOSX (Cocoa).

The above is wrong. The original NeXT Computer OS was called NeXTSTEP (notice capitalisation--it's important in what follows). When NeXT Computer ditched hardware, it became "NeXT Software", and spun off it's OS (in the 3.x version) into a cross platform OS called OpenStep (4.x).

This OS was to run on Sun, Intel and NeXT boxes. The API was modified, and made public (the API, not implementation).

This API specification was called OPENSTEP (capitalisation differs from the NeXT Software OS name).

GNUStep is therefore based on the OPENSTEP specification. No other permutation of name and inheritance is correct.

GNUstep is better!

[lightfoot jim]

Gnome and KDE are great if user friendly==windows98 look and feel, and if you have a fast machine with a ton of ram. To give a single example of the userfriendliness, your "main menu" in KDE or Gnome require you to move your mouse over the K or the foot, respectively. GNUstep lets you click anywhere on the background image. Additionally, in GNUstep icons are usually spaced out in a line along one screen edge so you can't possible overshoot with your mouse. Seems trivial, but it lets me work faster.

Also, GNUstep will run on some pretty old hardware. I have changed the setup lately, but I used to have KDE2 on my 900mhz duron w/ 512 MB and WindowMaker on my PII 100mhz w/ 32 MB and if you didn't actually know, you'd think the PII was faster just because the environment was so lightweight.

Download doesn't work

[xtremex]

I went to the site and the ISO they have for download doesnt exist! stage1.iso.zip isnt there!
:(

Not there yet.

[foonf]

I downloaded the ISO and tried to boot into it. Immediately the kernel fb support gave an "unsupported display mode" error. I checked the available modes and there was nothing but text modes available. I have a Matrox G400, which is very well supported by the kernel framebuffer drivers. In fact I use the fb console at 1024x768 on my real linux installation without problems.

The startup looked interesting, at any rate. It failed to detect my NIC (a pretty standard DEC Tulip card) and gave a few other errors I can't remember. Then it tried to run X, but since it was configured to use the framebuffer driver, which wasn't working, it choked. Needless to say if they had at least allowed the option of using the XFree86 accelerated drivers, it would have been fine, but they don't. So then the system shut itself down. This worked ok, except their kernel is compiled without APM support, so it didn't actually turn itself off.

Oh well. I'll try it again later, seems like a decent idea really.

Debian (was Re:If it's a fairly BSDish Linux..)

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm... not to post the obvious... but have you ever tried Debian? It's harder to install the first time, but you get /soooo/ much control over what gets installed that if you get a bad install, you're really the one to blame ;-)

Of course, you will probably want to compile your own kernel, since the Debian kernels usually suck. But hey, that's what the LDP's Kernel HOWTO is for, right? ;-)

Re:Corrections

[droleary]

Clearly the people modding you up don't know you're clueless yourself. The original OS was called both NeXTSTEP and NEXTSTEP by NeXT, and OPENSTEP was the follow-up OS. With it came a cross-platform API called OpenStep. Perhaps it's asking too much for people to actually go to the GNUstep site and click on the "GNU & OpenStep" link?

Re:Screenshots, please.

[Kaypro]

Was lucky enought to grabe this minutes before it was posted.

Bootup is EXACTLY like RedHat/Mandrake.... guess they didn't implement that part yet.

After booting it starts up X in vesa mode and up pops the GUI... It looks...well..exactly like WindowMaker... I'm guessing cause thats what theyre using.

As far as apps go it's minimal...you got a terminal, email, and stuff...nothing out of the ordinary.

They do have a nice IDE Development though.

I'll check it out next release probably.... it seemed pretty fast. Worth checking out.... just make sure you burn this on an CD-RW.... ;-)

Chow!

At the risk of plugging the obvious...

[Mister Snee]

This is why I use Slackware. :D

Granted, the distro tree is a lot more desktop-oriented than it deserves to be, seeing as it makes such a decent server distribution. Just pick and choose your packages carefully and you can make it anything you want. (Hey, it's even got a sane "package" implementation.) It takes well to having bits and pieces added onto it (although doing so does tend to break down your ability to manage it as a "distribution" per se).

At any rate, it's a simple, highly-customizable, all-purpose distribution, and it doesn't boot to a GUI after install. I use it for everything from a 486 with 8 megs of RAM to serve a mailing list, to a P3 with 512 megs as a pseudo-desktop network dealie. What more could you ask?
... I think I forgot my original point.
Look over there!

Re:Window managers vs. Graphical environments

[Anonymous Coward]

Is functionality like copying from one graphical app and pasting to another determined by the graphical environment (GNOME, KDE) or the window manager (Enlightenment, Sawfish)?

Use your middle mouse button. It works across all X apps.

Gnome and KDE have tried to emulate the Windows Clipboard however. If you use those functions then you will only be able to copy/paste KDE to KDE and Gnome to Gnome.

Re:first reaction

[tenelson]

Office is a Carbon application, which means that it doesn't use the Cocoa APIs that GNUstep is trying to replicate. So it will never run Office or Photoshop or anything like that, but it may someday run Omniweb.
Tony

Re:Interesting, PowerPC version?

[xil]

Mac OS X still has fat binaries, actually. You should be able to build binaries which will run on Mac OS X or Darwin (PPC) and Darwin (Intel).

Obviously the Darwin/Intel contingent is pretty small, so I haven't seen this in practice.

On my Mac OS X 10.1.2 box:

% which lipo
/usr/bin/lipo

Re:Interesting, PowerPC version?

[Anonymous Coward]

GNUStep has the framework for fat binaries in place. An application is actually a folder with an executable, TIFFs, and property lists. Running an application is done by running a shell script that searches common application locations, checks what processor and OS you're using, and runs the appropriate binary. The biggest shortcoming is GCC, which can only compile for 1 architecture at a time.

Terms & Definitions

[maggard]

For those confused by what's what this might help bring folks up to speed (and keep the discussion coherent):

• NeXT: The next business founded by Steve Jobs after being pushed out of Apple (to sell the next generation of computers.)
• NeXTSTEP: The black cube then slab with object-oriented OS based on Unix sold by NeXT Computer.
• OpenStep: The NeXT OS ported to 5 different architectures and sold as a stand-alone product.
• Objective-C: The language OpenStep is written in. An object oriented extension of C considered by many to be cleaner then C++.
• GNUstep: The reimplementation of OpenStep by gnu-folks.
• Rhapsody: OpenStep after Next buys Apple for -$400 million. Reworked to be their next OS. To run on Macs and under Wintel. Dropped after developers refuse support.
• MacOS X: Shipped version of next-gen MacOS. OpenStep-derived kernel & Cocoa layer along with legacy MacOS compatabilty & virtualization evironments. Publically PPC only.
• MacOS X Server: Same thing, different focus on services.
• Cocoa: The layer in MacOS X that along with the kernel is still closely OpenStep.
• Darwin: The Open Source PPC & x86 core of MacOS X - doesn't include Cocoa.
• Simply GNUstep: GNUstep coupled with a Linux distribution.

Re:Not there yet.

[cehardin]

The problem is the way sourceforge does uploads. Everytime I have tried to upload the sio image for SimplyGNUstep to the /incoming directory somebody moves it before the upload is complete. This has happened tie and time again and is very frustrating.

For now, just got to http://simplygnustep.sourceforge.net and download it there.

Chad

Re:Not there yet.

[cehardin]

The problem is that many of the newest video cards do not support the VESA 2.0 standard.

As this was mainly a demo cd, I was more concerned with getting it to run on as many machines as possible with minimal effore (therefore, VESA)

The actual installation disc I'll end up creating will not try to use the VESA framebuffer.

Chad

its what its already /brought/ to the party!

[surfsalot]

GNUstep is the open source version of the NEXTSTEP operating system... something, that while it may not have taken off and done as well as it should have, did contribute to computing today. Really a revolutionary idea. Back in a time when start buttons werent the fad, and nobody kept an icon of a desktop on their desktop, there were some great ideas, and freedom to express them. Sounds as though these guys want forward progress through unification and a few basic ideas... something that linux is not known for, it tends to make progress ameboidotically (ok, I made that word up, but you get the idea). Unfortunantly GNUstep hasnt recieved all the development backing from the community that kde/gnome have... which isnt such a bad thing... wm has stayed relatively simple and straight to the point (along with blackbox, which isnt based on GNUstep, but has a lot of the NS feel qualities to it)... something that I think is lost in kde and gnome.

Re:Download doesn't work

[BadlandZ]

Read SourceForge Forum on it [sourceforge.net] to see why...

Re:Mmmm...Objective-C!

[bnenning]

Apple has made modifications to gcc to support "Objective C++", which allows Objective C code to use C++ syntax and classes. Hopefully these changes will eventually be merged into the main gcc sources.

Re:Mmmm...Objective-C!

[eweu]

To be fair, the problem is most likely that Obj-C has been all but abandoned, and never has worked properly alongside C++.

That just isn't true. Obj-C is not popular or widespread, but Apple continues to develop the language. Take a look at the release notes from Project Builder:

Mac OS X 10.1 introduces the Objective-C++ front-end to the Mac OS X version of the GCC compiler. Objective-C++ allows you to freely mix C++ and Objective C code in the same source source file. Using Objective-C++, you can directly call Objective-C objects from C++ code, and you can directly call C++ code from Objective-C objects. Thus, Objective-C++ allows you to use C++ class libraries directly from within your Cocoa application, or to use Cocoa or Foundation objects directly from within your C++ application.

Since I do this quite a bit, I'd have to say Obj-C and C++ play quite nicely together.

Update from Chad (author)

[redmenace]

I've got to run to work (I'm late!), but if one of you could please put a post on the slashdot article explaining the problem I would be very
thankful!

It seems I broke a rule at sourceforge which limits file sizes to 100MB

If someone could offer a mirror site I would be very thankful for that as well!

Thanks! Chad

Here's what sourceforge had to say

--------------

Greetings,

My name is ********; I am the Quality of Service Manager for
SourceForge.net. This message is directed to you since you are
designated as a project administrator for the Simply GNUstep project on
SourceForge.net.

First, we would like to take a moment to congratulate you on your recent
press exposure on Slashdot.org -- we love to see Open Source projects
succeed, and press exposure of this nature is always of great benefit.
Since the announcement of your project efforts on /., your project has
received roughly 2241 downloads of the ISO image provided through your
download page at: http://simplygnustep.sourceforge.net/Download.html

It has come to our attention that you are making use of SourceForge.net
project web services as a mechanism to release file materials in excess
of 100MB in size. Each project hosted on SourceForge.net is provided
with project web services as to ensure that they may adequately provide
an online description and information regarding their project.

... etc

Why simply GNUstep will not DL!

[cehardin]

Sourceforge has a policy of not allowing DLs of files over 100MB, I broke that limit with my 110MB ISO image, so they took read access form the file to everybody but me.

If someone would like to offer a mirror I would appreciate it very much!

Chad Hardin

Re:Mmmm...Objective-C!

[cbv]

Apple has made modifications to gcc to support "Objective C++", which allows Objective C code to use C++ syntax and classes. Hopefully these changes will eventually be merged into the main gcc sources.

Take a look at that proposal [google.com] by Ziemowit Laski ...

Re:Why Linux??

[jslag]

The Free Software Foundation doesn't consider Apple's license to be free [gnu.org], but puhleeease...Darwin is free software. It's just silly how RMS thinks he owns the word "free."

Would you think it was silly if you put lots of work into modifying Darwin for internal use, and then realized that you were legally obligated to publish your changes? Because, according to the link you provide, that's why the FSF doesn't call Darwin free.

Re:Why simply GNUstep will not DL!

[PMcGovern]

SourceForge.net does indeed have a 100MB limit per project for project web server disk usage.

We do, however, encourage people to use our File Release System (FRS) which does not have this 100MB limitation.

The File Release System is recommended for a number of reasons; one of which is
to allow us to balance the traffic load among many download servers on our high-capacity download network.

Before we removed the file, Simply GNUstep had two thousand downloads at 110MB each, during the course of the day (totalling over 200 GB of data).

Obviously we need to distribute this kind of load, which our file release system allows us to do; otherwise this kind of download traffic will impact the other 30,000 projects we host.

If you have any other questions about this, please feel free to email me at pat (at) sourceforge.net