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Run Gnome -- On Windows
Charles Northrup (followed by many others) writes: "After a long battle with the POSIX.DLL from AT&T's U/WIN, we finally have recompiled over 4 million lines of code for the Gnome Desktop running on Windows. We had to change just under 100 lines to do this. Amazingly, the recompilation of Gnome only took 1.5 weeks. Then we had to spend the next 3 months working on the 47,000 line POSIX.DLL to get Gnome working." Here are some screenshots of this odd hybrid, pointed to by reader dimator. (Northrup invites e-mailed comments and questions, too.) And jumbolo points out the discussion about this at The GNOME Project's Gnotices site.
I would very much like to develop Open Source programs which would compile on Windows too. Is the Windows GUI (more specifically the Xlibs equivalent) closed or what is preventing people from developing a free GUI toolkit for the Windows?
I love the irony of this...
Gnome has been accused of mimicking windows,
and now they are ported it into ms-land.
anyways, I've put up a quick mirror here:
http://www.image.dk/~freak/gnome4windoze
cheers !
start x-win32 on your win32 box. ssh or telnet to your linux box. export DISPLAY=10.0.0.1:0.0 (substitute your windows box ip in place of 10.0.0.1) then type gnome-session. Takes less then 1 min.
Remember, this isn't a native port to the win32 platform. You'll need an X11 server on your Windows machine - and that's what does all the hard work.
Heh? No, the menu bar has nothing to do with X. X doesn't handle menu bars. Widget sets handle menu bars. X's design has nothing to do with menu bars. This is a Good Thing (tm).
Anyhow, yeah, us Unix types would largely rather use the keyboard than the mouse. Takes longer to learn, but we get stuff done faster. You have something wrong with that?
What kind of video card do you have?
I used to have those issues. Then I bought a Voodoo 3.
I work at a Linux company. Nobody in engineering uses anything but linux. Nobody.
On the other hand, management, sales, marketing and the like use Windows. This is a Bad Thing(tm) because it looks bad for us -- customers come in and see our salespeople giving PowerPoint presentations on our Windows boxen about why we should support their (embedded) linux development.
We care a lot about migrating those managers to Linux. Right now we're using Win4Lin to provide that path -- but my point is, for us, the need is there.
It's a separate thing from this UWIN layer, but coding against straight GTK (without GNOME) and using the Win32 GTK port permits one to make Real Win32 Apps (tm). I've actually done a few that way -- only taken on average a few hours to port and work out the bugs. Not sure what it would take to combine that with this UWIN-based GNOME port.
Actualy, on the cygwin website there is a link to the binaries for X-4.0.something. Cygwin has a great web based installation these days (before noted on slashdot). I use Xemacs, compiled for cygwin, but such standard things as printing and font selection are missing.
I remember posting a picture on #debian of my friends desktop, running gimp, windowblinds, an xterm and other programs (including windows explorer which was the final dead give away) in a mac-looking environment.
The perl story is interesting, since we are an all Java shop, we actualy had to turn to perl for true crossplatform work. We also run out CVS server on NT (which CVSNT has a cool feature that handles authentication overr the NT domain!) that runs pretty well.
If I can't use Linux, this is all the next best thing.
In case it isn't a joke:
1.5 week to port Gnome to UWIN (i.e. make the necessary changes to Gnome to make it compile under UWIN).
3 month to port UWIN to Gnome (i.e. make the necessary changes to posix.dll to make it actually run the (newly compiled) Gnome).
Cygwin being GPL'ed and comming from one of large Gnome supporters would seem to be more "politically correct". Is UWIN techincally superior?
> If you come from NT, the graphics performance of
> X is scary.
When NT was nerd, a fellow nerd tried to show me how much faster it was than X. He took an NT application, moved the cursor back and forward over the menubar, and noticed how NT had no trouble drawing and removing the menus as fast as he could move the mouse. He then took an X11/Motif application, and moved the mouse over the menu bar. You could actually *see* the application draw the menus.
I was confused, because I had never seen X be that slow, but then again, I mostly uses xterm and Emacs. So I took Emacs, moved the mouse back and forward over the menubar (which I rarely use) and Emacs had no trouble at all drawing and removing the menus as fast as I could move the mouse.
The difference was that Emacs by default uses its own Xt based toolkit, rather than using Motif.
The morale is, despite being network transparant, X11 itself is not slow. However some of the toolkits are pure disasters.
Unless Gtk+ is as bad as Motif, it is unlikely that the performance alone will scare users away. The difference in Look&Feel are much more likely sources for nebie angst.
Of course, the issue is somewhat convoluted by the fact that X11 servers under Win often are much slower than "bare metal" X11 servers. I use an old version of Exceed, which is acceptable for text and GUI controls, but very slow for displaying images.
When you only have to change 100 lines to get it to work under Windows (though, admittedly, on top of an abstraction layer) it says, or should say, "Look, our code really IS portable...and hey, it's portable from Linux to Windows!"
;-)
One has to wonder what's so damned difficult about an IE5 recompile for Linux/BSD/UN*X machines.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
"if Linux and Open Source is ever going to win over MS (which is what /. posters at large often cite they want to do) than our focus must be on creating "value" rather than "cool" projects if we are going to win."
/. readers to the general public. The general public, I daresay, just thinks, "make my email work" or such similar statements. They don't care about Free Software/Open Source ideology. They don't care what OS is under the hood. They want a system that runs somewhat smoothly and that they don't have to mess with.
:-) If all you do is bitch and moan about someone doing a for-fun project, hell, I see no reason to develop *anything* for you. You're not paying me, I'm not making any money off of your usage of my software, and you don't seem to appreciate my work. Go away, please, and I'll just develop my for-fun software for myself and not release it. (Come to think of it, that's what I do and why I do it. :-( )
You seem to be applying the feelings of a few
IMHO it's The Press(TM) who's tried to set community policy--we've helped identify Microsoft as the Evil Choice and Linux as the L33t Hax0rs and now we want you to take over! Now mainstream press expects unpaid, volunteer programmers, instead of producing software they WANT to produce, to produce the replacement for Microsoft Word. Sorry, guys; thanks for playing. If you really want to see it happen, support efforts like the Gnome Foundation, KDE League, and other efforts to produce end-user software. Let the for-fun developers do their for-fun projects.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Check Cygnus for XFree for Win32. Apparently it only works on NT, ME, and 2K at the moment.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
If anyone manages to replace an entire operating system, capable of running on a humble 8088, with a Unix shell... THAT would be unbelievable.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
Oh, I've seen XEmacs running quite effortlessly under Windows... =)
Look, as soon as the CYGWIN folks release XFree 4.0 for Windows (which they're about to do), Windows folks will have a high quality free X server available. From there it's a simple jump to Gnome and KDE applications on Windows. That's the migration path.
A large IT shop can't afford to simply dump Windows and move their entire userbase to Linux in one fell swoop. There's training costs to consider, application testing for internal conformity within the organization, plus security and productivity issues. If you're managing several hundred to a thousand desktops you can't afford to segment off a department just to try out a new OS, nor can you afford to just move everyone in enmasse given the potential risks involved; what if it doesn't work? You need a migration path whereby both systems can be tested and either junked in case of failure. Successful IT shops plan for failure otherwise they experience failure.
Microsoft has done a good job at killing off potential migration paths away from Windows by either buying up competitors or squashing them with anti-competitive means. See: Netscape. This is a major threat to Windows because within a year or two it will allow an IT manager the possibility to deploy GNOME and its applications on the desktop and test them without being dependent on their success. Combine this with OpenOffice and Gnome-1.4/2.0 and the Free Software community will have provided a safe migration path off of Windows. Most IT organizations are risk averse, but they're not stupid about unnecessary expense. If they can get away from the Windows tax without affecting productivity, watch the world dump Windows.
Cheers,
J. Maynard Gelinas
If you teach people Gnome applications on Windows, you can then slip the OS out from under them without complaint.
Personally, I think the requirement to have an X server is terribly flawed... but then I hate this "desktop war" too. I bet they'll eventually be able to do it without relying on Exceed. Ethereal is a Gnome app and it works o.k. on Win32 without one. (http://www.ethereal.com/)
If you're using an X server why not just run X over the network?
People (well, this person at least) aren't annoyed at the Lotes Notes interface just because it's different, but because it's also bad.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Actually, most widget sets in X also create a separate window for each widget (button, menu, ...). I'm pretty sure Xt, Motif, GTK+, and Qt all use windows for most widgets. I recall that Xt/Motif called windowless widgets gadgets instead of widgets, but they were rarely used.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
While running Gnome on Windows is a novelty -- you probably won't find a lot of apps that will make it worthwhile.
I know this is a technology demo, but you still have to ask yourself what could you do with such a setup? Most Windows X display servers do not support everything you'd get on Linux. It's been a while since I ran X on Windows, but a lot of apps had wierd repaints, and other subtle misbehaviours. While this is minor, other problems exist such as the desktop... you can't exactly discard the MS Toolbar (Start button) for the ole Gnome foot.
What WOULD be cool is if this could run without Windows... just run it on top of DOS, like Windows 3.1 did (and Windows 98 still does, though it's deliberately more difficult to run a non MS DOS 7 underneath the GUI).
Why run this on DOS when you could use Linux? DOS is simpler to install, runs on very old hardware (286's), and while lacking memory protection and multitasking... DOS was rather stable. Many older NT admins cut their teeth on DOS (course, the new ones think a system log is mouse turd behind the rackmount).
Anyone try this in Windows under VMWare? Heh.
Actually, this is probably more due to the priority you are giving your X server. I reniced my X server, window manager, and panel to -20 and got _really_ nice results.
Engineering and the Ultimate
after starting X, do
ps eafx
look for PIDs with the names "panel", "X", and "sawfish"
then, su to root, and for each PID, do
renice -20 PID
replacing PID with the process's actual PID.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Why bother? Because it's there. Because someone got an itch and decided to scratch it real good. Because if it's stable it'll be a good way to get some Windows users used to the L&F and features of Gnome without needing Linux installed first.
./ for the past several years, it still amazes me that people can get so upset about something that affects them in exactly zero ways. Be calm, no one is going to break into your house and force you at gunpoint to install this thing. You don't have to use it.
Just because.
(BTW, telling someone their pet project is stupid is guaranteed to get you ignored or worse, especially if you're not the one funding it.)
Even having read
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Thank You for Your truly insightful advice, O Wise Ruler of All Things Technical.
Surely this proves You are best suited to decree what projects should and should not be completed -- how can the community remain blind to that fact? For You are the One True DevGod, and Your omniscience is staggering.
If it pleases You, tell us what other pointless activities are we mere mortals wasting our time chasing? Enlighten us, O Master of Project Management!
[sarcasm mode off. - a hint for all the numbnuts who won't otherwise understand the point of this post]
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
Whatever. Whenever I close workman, the tasklist_applet just "goes away". I ended up adding a button down there to restart it, otherwise I can't bring my windows back once I've minimized them.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Program Intellivision!
On my windows machine, I really dislike explorer.
I also dislike Explorer in my computer. I'd rather have it in me. (Not high-profile like Absolut, but just as good, and cheaper.)Actually most of GNOME should use Glib rather than the standard libraries. Since Glib is already ported to Windows it should make porting GNOME a lot easier.
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enterfornone - logging in for a change
The whole point of doing this is to show that you can select aix/bsd/linux/solaris/unix systems as the primary development platform and still target the windows market. While a kernel develop may not necessarily care, an application developer should.
There is no doubt that linux is great! We have about 12 different releases here, and we use them.
We also use BSD.
But I am really tired of the notion that commercial shops, needing to maintain a high ROI, must select windows as the development platform of choice, at the expense of the Unix base market.
Porting code from Win32 to Unix is a nightmare. Yes, there are tools available, but they are expensive and they let you maintain your Win32 API.
I want to write unix based applications, and not have to rewrite them for Windows. It is just too expensive to maintain multiple code branches. The cost of duplicating design, development, maintenance, and support is high enough that many companies will develop exclusive for only one OS market segment.
Why did we select GNOME? Mostly because it was there. We could have ported KDE just as easily (I hope:)
We also ported many of the other applications, such as gnucash, which does not need gnome to run.
In fact, most of the applications included can run without the GNOME desktop even being started.
It was more the point of software portability.
I have posted more info about the X11 off of our download page. Hopefully, the Cygwin X11 server will be available soon, and it can be used instead.
As for U/WIN itself being a commercial application, the answer is, yes it is. And yes, we do sell it. However, you can download it from the AT&T Research site under the research or educational license, and there is no fee.
The effort to compile the GNOME code did take 1.5 weeks. A fair portion of that was just trying to find the right source code. The supporting environment (i.e., glade, gtk, swig, and others) were easy to port as well. It was also nice to see gnu-cash port so easily.
Tools such as gnumeric did not port because we could not get the header files straight. Specifically this relates to the font headers.
The package I really wanted to port was screem. We had problems with the callbacks and signals. Hopefully we can get that straightend out.
--charlie northrup
PS. We are a very small company and have been working with u/win for about 2 years now. Early adaptors had mixed success. For quite awhile, we were going through the release of the day. This was troublesom. When u/win 2.2 baseline came about, we forked the code from the AT&T release so that we could work on the terminal line drivers, while David and his team worked on other areas. We are now working to integrate all those changes.
U/WIN does not include an X11 server. There are multiple choices here, though for open source servers, and commercial servers. If somebody can provide an open source version, we will gladly point to it, or even host the project from our site.
--charlie northrup
This first release should be viewed as a beta release. To run, simply start a kornshell console window, and then type in:
$ gnome-session
You will need the X11 server running. For test purposes, we linked the commercial X11 server to:
/usr/X11/bin/X
So we first run
$ X &
and then start gnome-session.
The U/WIN code is a win32 application providing the console screen. From the kornshell prompt, you can type in any of the supported commands, or, start win32 applications.
One thing that was pretty cool was being able to type in the pathname for the netscape.exe from the gmc run applet.
--charlie northrup
The reason it took 1.5 weeks was that I had no prior experience in building gnome or the applications like gnucash, glimmer, gmanedit, and others.
It took a fair amount of effort to find all the source code we needed, download the code, and run the configure script. Then make, make check, and make install.
when I would port a specific app, I then had to go fetch and build a supporting tool, such as swig. I never even heard of swig before this:)
The whole point of doing this was not to show off Gnome, but to stress to the industry that you can, and should, develop applications on unix based systems and then port to windows where appropriate. Commercial app developers too frequently go the other way. They start by developing for Windows, and then say... ohh.. the cost of porting to unix based systems is too prohibitive. Then get a clue... develop for unix based sysems first! That was the whole point of doing this.
If we had more time and money, I would have ported KDE so as not to favor one abstraction over the other.
--charlie northrup
The point of doing this is to show that developers, both commercial and non-commercial, can and should use unix based systems as their primary target. The code, in most cases, can be easily recompiled on Windows and thus, you do no eliminate that market segment for your applications. That is the point... clear and simple.
It is indeed an impressive feat that they were able to get gnome to compile under the UWIN Posix library.
I suspect that Interix would have made the job much easier.
Interix (formerly OpenNT) was a posix-compliant subsystem for NT that provided many utilities and for all intensive purposes, a mostly complete unix subsystem for the NT platform. I managed to port WindowMaker and AfterStep, among other things, to run under Interix. Some of you may remember, but the people at softway systems once ran an add in a Linux magazine, announcing a 'bounty' system for people who could port certain things to their subsystem. Gnome was one of them, but I guess no one took up the challenge.
Unfortunately, Interix (Softway Systems) was bought by Microsoft last year some time last year. Microsoft said that they were going to roll the Interix package in with their "Unix Services for Windows", but I have not seen anything come of that. I often wonder if Interix was bought just to stop their progress?
I have some screenshots of the two window managers I managed to port, running in NT via Exceed:
http://billimek.com/interix/
I will never forget the ignorance I was met with when I went into efnet's #linux asking about porting a window manager to interix. All of the people in there ridiculed me and told me I was stupid. Some even said such clever things like 'man X' and other such nonsense. Thanks to their zealotry, I was determined to prove them wrong. And when I posted the first screenshot of a successful port for them to see, all I got was stunned silence.
There's an easier way...
:)
Here is a screenshot of gnome running on my wife's windows box (remote x-session on my Linux box). She has a icon on her desktop and with just a double-click she can fire up a remote gnome session and run all things Linux.
screenshot
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
First of all, the existing Windows interface is alright, you can virtualy do anything you can with Gnome, and it does look and run sleeker.
Bah. How about multiple desktops? Yes, I know there's a zillion of those I can find off nonags, and they're all buggier than a Bangkok summer. The one on the resource kit is actually the worst one yet. A DOS box with less than completely crappy terminal handling would be nice too (try running w3m or just emacs over win2k's telnet). I wouldn't mind being able to move windows with alt-drag also.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
In what sense ? MFC also adds a "layer of abstraction". Or maybe you're confusing GNOME with a Window manager. Repeat after me:
GNOME IS NOT A WINDOW MANAGER
The point is that if you want GNOME applications to run on Linux, you've got to port the GNOME development platform (yes, GNOME includes a development platform, it is NOT a Window manager)
How many of your professors run GNOME applications on their Windows desktop ? WOuldn't it be nice if they could do so, given that GNOME/KDE have all the momentum at the moment ?
No you haven't. You displayed it on the Windows box, but it was running on your Linux machine. The difference here is that the application is running on the Windows machine, so one can try out GNOME applications without needing to install Linux.
Another real problem I can see with X desktop ports is the difference in the base functionality of gui. X is a very powerful client/server mechanism for serving applications to a user with a minimal (comparitively) requirement on comformity while the windows explorer seems to be nothing more than a threaded graphical version of command.com riddled with an intricate web of undocumented calls and dependancies (aka by ms: integrated...)
If a new desktop environment for windows is keeping you from easily installing and using windows software, why bother? If you use free software thats available for multiple platforms and want an X style interface you may as well use an operating system and ui that was meant to handle it.
Uhm, that's a shell replacement, too.
-
Personally I think the native GTK+ port to win32 is cooler than the CYGWIN one. You don't need an X server. Granted GNOME would be a huge task to port since you don't have the POSIXness. Check out the Gimp and GTK+ ported to Win32.
While the end result of this project is "cool" I fail to see the "value" that the end user will get from it.
Screw "value"... Open source developers don't have to do _every_ project with an altruistic mind. If things were like that, coding would be just like work without pay. You've just gotta have the fun factor.
Folks, call me crazy, but as long as Linux and the Open Source community keep there focus ENTIRELY on "cool" and technical-only-oriented projects, we will never be able to convince the Windows user to switch nor are we going to win new users.
Linux is hardly about being entirely on "cool". Only a small share actually ends up with "useless but cool" products.
Just because these projects end up getting a lot of publicity on Slashdot it doesn't mean they take up development manpower. Consider this port was done in 1.5 weeks by ONE PERSON.
And even then, I don't really care about convincing Windows users to switch anymore. It's already obvious that Linux is better and probably every person that I know that uses a computer, no matter how uninitiated at it, has heard of Linux.
Normal users will change to Linux when it's time to change, not when you want them to.
Flavio
This may be successful with people who are interested in WMs like Litestep, Darkstep and other less known ones.
Having tried most of them, I'd say that they're usually buggy and quite beta. Usability is limited, mostly because you lose most of Windows' native functions (which are dependent on explorer.exe, the WM) and only implement a limited number of new ones.
This feature implementation is usually done by using plugins and modules, which are in theory a good thing. In practice it means that you usually get a slow manager that can crash or behave badly just because of one buggy plugin.
I've managed to use Litestep for a few days, but eventually went back to explorer.exe because features like file managing and printing were still tied to the latter, making the whole idea somewhat flawed.
I hope Gnome works as one would expect. If it does, I'll probably change for good.
Flavio
Although I'm sure it'll be useful for someone, this strikes me as a really bad idea. One of the few things Windows has going for it is (gasp!) a common look and feel, something *NICes have never had. I can't picture any Windows users deciding they want to have a bunch of uglier widgets right next to ones that look totally different, just so they can run...um, gnumeric? Gaim? Gftp? What exactly would be someone's motivation to run this? Certainly Gimp would be ok, but in that situation the program itself should be ported.
I'm no fan of Windows, polluting it with the *NIX world's fragmentation seems counter-productive.
-lx
Without any kind of stepping stone, people will never want to switch to Linux (say your boss wants to see what it's like without trashing his box completely), this way they can get kind of used to the look/feel of it, so the step to Linux won't leave them in the dark.
It's a necessary step in taking over the world.
Cygwin has a large based of Linux/GNU utils and programs that have already been ported. I recompiled GTK+ and gimp for cygwin without having to change a single line of code - so cygwin is a relatively mature environment.
-josh
...figures it'd be the 47,000 line.
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Celebrate the finer things in life
Gnome is not just a desktop. It is also an application framework. I personally think it would be very cool to be able to run the Gnome apps I love in Windows. x-chat, for example, is the best IRC client I've found, for any platform. However, I don't like the idea of having to use a commercial tool like U/WIN and an X-server.
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Celebrate the finer things in life
It wouldn't be difficult at all to theme the apps to look like Windows. The framework is all there.
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Celebrate the finer things in life
There are many good reasons for wanting Gnome applications to work in Windows. The first one that comes to mind is that it would be nice to be able to run the Gnome applications that I have come to absolutely love, in Windows. Also, this would make the GTK+/Gnome platform much more attractive to developers that are currently on the fence. If they know that an application they develop using the GTK+/Gnome platform can be made to run in Windows, that is very exciting, because Windows is already the platform of choice for 90% of the world. Having said that, I don't think a proprietry application like U/Win and an X-Server is the right answer. The right answer, IMHO, is to perfect the portability in the GTK+/Gnome platform itself. The Windows port of GDK, is coming along nicely, and I expect that with time, porting a GTK+/Gnome application to Windows will become as trivial as a recompile.
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Celebrate the finer things in life
That and more has already been done. Check out the Cygwin Tools. I installed them on my Windows 2000 box at work and now I have bash, vim, grep, sed, awk, and many more Unix tools working on my Windows machine. It's a very powerful addition to a Windows development environment. When I'm developing in Visual Studio, I can click on a button on the toolbar, pull up the source file I'm hacking on in Vim, do powerful search and replaces using regex's. Or I can pop up a bash session and do greps or run bash scripts I've written. I love it.
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Celebrate the finer things in life
here
There are plenty of ways that you can do this now. I use MixNT to run X apps on a windows machine across a network. I've also used xceed to do this as well, its not all that hard.
I think your mistake is assuming it's necessary to "win".
Choice of masters is not freedom.
There's a Java one:
:-)
WeirdX
It's monochrome, last I tried it, but it's better than nothing
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
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--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
http://members.nbci.com/arealms0/gnomewin/
:P)
It's got the ugly banner frame on the top, but hey, at least it works. And it's in no danger of being slashdotted.
(And no, I didn't mirror the files.
- Ed.
http://members.nbci.com/arealms0/gnomewin/ (directory listing) ore sktop.html (actual site)
http://members.nbci.com/arealms0/gnomewin/gnome-d
The above is a mirror. I took the effort this time around to butcher all the HTML pages and remove the absolute paths for the images so it renders correctly. Hopefully.
The site was getting bogged down when I was leeching the files, so it's probably slashdotted by now.
Enjoy.
- Ed.
Windows folks will have a high quality free X server available. From there it's a simple jump to Gnome and KDE applications on Windows. That's the migration path.
Why would a Windows user want an X Server? Why would a Windows user want to migrate to Gnome? IT departments support Windows applications and no "migration" would realistically aim to dump those. I don't see the benefit for Windows users. They don't care about the GPL. They care about their hard work and data.. which happen to be in Windows apps.
cpeterso
Sort of - I was running sco-vision X term client.
(It was an oracle install issue, where you must have a window managed to run their java program, its a long story.....)
I figured why not try something different. I typed KDE and all these icons apeared on top of my existing windows desktop.. It was quite a mess and not easy to stop..
People change there "NT" shell at work to take usix commands (ls, grep etc....) so why not the desk top?
The VALUE??? I saw the value in 1 second. I want to write some open source cross platform software... really, I do, this is not just a rhetorical example. Now that Gnome has been ported to Windows, I have a way to do my development under Linux with GTK and Gnome as the main target, and easily recompile my application to run under Windows-with-Gnome for users who can't or won't switch. I suppose that was already possible with QT, now that it's GPL, but for programmers who prefer the Gnome programming model, this can be very convenient.
My second problem with your post is that you think that there's too much focus on "cool" and "technical" projects. Well, most of the people working on that stuff are not working for some big company that tells them what to do. They like it that way, even though a lot of them are working for free. They probably won't be interested in working for free on what you want them to do.
A lot of Linux users don't care if we "win the war" against Microsoft. Why should they care?
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
umm ... no. thanks for coming out though.
...), you should at least know that GNOME isn't just a window manager, or even just a desktop environment. it is a software development platform, and because of this it means a lot if someone ports the platform itself to a very popular operating system.
having the GNOME development layer available on windows is a big deal. basically it means that you can now develop an application using the high quality, open source GNOME platform, and then copy the source on to a windows machine and have it compile and run just as it would on a linux box. if the program is written entirely over GNOME, porting it to windows will basically cost nothing.
as an obviously devoted linux advocate (i think i read the word "war" at least a couple times in your message
i honestly don't think people should be allowed to advocate a platform (whether its linux, gnome, kde, mozilla, etc) until they've actually written code for it.
One problem with this is that GNOME for Windows requires an X server presence on the Windows machine. Because of this, the port, while still pretty cool, loses some technical merit. Using an X server means that they had all the standard X libraries available on UNIX systems; they didn't need to port any low level Xlib stuff to Windows.
Because of this, I find that the Windows port of Gimp has more technical merit; it does not require an X server - it is a full-fledged port of the GTK library to the Windows platform.
Now I'm not a GNOME expert, but aren't most of the graphics aspects of GNOME built on top of GTK? Why not port GNOME to Windows using this available library? This way, an X server will not be required. (Of course, I'm assuming that non-graphical libraries, ORBit, glib, etc, that GNOME uses are easy to port to Windows).
> Why in the hell would I want to replace my superbly useful Windows Desktop with GNOME???
It's not just the desktop, it's the ability to run software written with GNOME. I'd imagine you can disable most of the visible GNOME stuff and just run the apps.
I'm in two minds as to whether this is a good thing or not.
Good: Makes it easier to write apps that work on Windows and Linux.
Bad: Makes it easier to write apps that work on Windows and Linux.
- Muggins the Mad
I thought that their claim of how easy it was to change the gnome source to get it to work was a sure sign of a hoax until I saw the list of requirements...
An X server...
:)
- Muggins the Mad
when i worked for an ISP we used to call that the "microsoft reccomended solution".
;-)
Other "reccomended solutions" involved removing tcp/ip from the network control panel and adding it again, etc...
sadly enough this was much much simpler than actually figuring out what was wrong
This might be very interesting to run individual Gnome application integrated in the Windoz Desktop. I would love for instance acces gnome-terminal from my Windoz box connected to a linux machine in a network.
Already been done
http://virtunix.itribe.net/"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I've been using it on my Windows box for over a year now, and I've not had any real problems (especially with the latest builds, the older releases did crash every now and then, but then again, so does explorer ;-)). I don't know what could be the cause of your printing problem, cuz I have never had any sort of difficulty printing things. And, as for file management, well, if you don't feel like going with any sort of third-party file manager, Windows Explorer works just fine under Linux.
:-)
:-)
If it's been a while, I suggest you go back and give it another chance. The right theme can actually enhance your user-experience. I'm not real big on VWMs (don't use 'em all that much in Linux either), but I find having things like amp controls and shortcuts quickly accessible immensely convenient. If you're forced to use Windows (like I am on occasion), might as well make the most of it. Besides, it never hurts to lend support to another Open Source project.
My. 2.0*10^-2 cents
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
Well, I'm probably giving my a karma shot in the head, but oh well, making good posts never seemed to do me much good anyways, and a person needs to vent every once in a while. :-)
:-) In summary: Don't leave me hanging. :-)
:-)
Basically, I don't feel like my saying what's on my mind is doing any good on this site. Now, I don't post very often, because I don't want to simply post ill-informed and/or ignorant responses. When I do take the time to write up an opinion on something, however, it seems to go largely unnoticed. Considering this post which I am replying to is apparently the first of my last ten or so posts which have been glanced at by moderators (and I'll say nothing of the fact that I got a point taken off for being off-topic, when I was simply replying to the person replying to my original post... seems withing the rules of on-topicness to me...) and I hardly, if ever, get replies to my post (even less often worthwhile replies). No one likes talking to a while. I'm sure I'm not the only person who posts to interact with the other intelligent life-forms.
Okay... I think I finished blowing off steam... if I preview this, I probably won't go throgh posting it, so forgive the typos.
Thanks for your indulgence, I'll be good from now on.
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
"This just in: GNOME sets the foot down on windows!"
I gave up on Linux because the only good program was Gimp and it was more stable than win80.
Now I use win2k use gimp and it is as stable (at least to me) as linux no os crash and no program takes over my keyboard and locks up the system (Netscape). But with gnome on win perhaps things will start looking a little better around here.
TTFN
Elephant: a mouse built to government specs
Actually, it says:
/. misquoting/representing and noone being able to check to see what really got said.
What makes this effort unique is that we did this in 1.5 weeks, and changed less than 100 lines of the original source code used in building GNOME for Linux.
Just another case of
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
I don't get it, I've written a lot of programs using GTK+ and they recompile flawlessly on windoze using VC++. Occasionally I've had to do a #ifdef WIN32 here and there, but really it's about coding the thing portably in the first place. Hell, you can even get precompiled dll's for GTK from the web site! I guess GNOME has a lot of posix specific stuff in it. Whenever the requirements state that the program must run identically on windoze and *nix I always use GTK. Sometimes I'll do the actual development on the windoze box using VC++, sometimes I'll do it on linux, but I'll always make it a habit to do a compile on the other OS after I add each feature (every day or two). I mean really, that's the idea of the toolkit isn't it?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Interestingly, you can just make windows look like it's running gnome:
d erbig.gif
http://www.dtop.org/outsider99/img/sshots/gnomesi
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
AcquaCow here...Litestep.net admin...I just wanna say that I've been using LS since may 98 and well...I have only seen LS itself truely crash only a few times...there was a period or two when LS didn't like multiple recyles...most of the time its the thrid party modules that will bring it down (hey...we all can't code perfetly can we?). I have not personally seen LiteStep crash since the 11-23-99 build. I dropped it a few times with a few modules once again, but I can recycle all I want now. I'm using the 10-6-2000 build at present and no problems here. Perhaps you should try it out again before you bash it..
-- AcquaCow
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
Hum let's see, there is a build for the Wintel, WInAlpha, some flavor of Unix(the one that comes with SGI computers) and Linux. And all are stable.
So 4 hours for 4 builds on four platforms, with all the same code base, except the os bastraction layer. Anyway, 1.5 to recompile still seems a little bit long, even tough they had to change a hundred lines of code...
What I don't really get, is how come it takes 1.5 weeks to recompile à 4 million code program. Where I worked we had about 1 million or so line of code and the thing compiled in about 2 hours.
mirror of graphics files:
http://elwww.cc.purdue.edu/~chen31/mirror/
be gentle.
we finally have recompiled over 4 million lines of code
yawn. 4 million lines of code my ass. I've ported gnome to about 4.5 billion punch cards. And it works greate on my Hollerith machine. Beat that Open Source movement.
Consider..
I use gnome on X all the time. I also have a windows machine for those annoying apps that just refuse to be ported, and that I am not comfortable enough with the X-ish alternatives.
On my windows machine, I really dislike explorer. It crashes regularly, and doesnt react the way I would like.
This is directly why you can choose to replace your shell with another one. I tried with litestep, but it was somewhat buggier for the things I did (YMMV), and still wasnt 'what I was looking for'.
With this, I can have a more linux-oriented desktop, showing my truer colors and spreading the word, and at the same time, allowing me to have a more consistent feel from (windows) desktop to (linux) desktop.
I think it kicks BUTT!
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
That's ridiculous. Putting Gnome on Windows is like teasing the retarded kid.
....or how about creating a standardized, free platform on which to build apps that runs on all unices as well as Windows?
Look at projects like Eazel, or Helix. If we have a standard gui and things like bonobo across all of the unices *and* MS machines, then we've just nailed pretty much the entire market. With the BSD core of the new MacOS, it's a hop skip and a jump from here to having Gnome capabilities on every major computing platform. I don't see the down side.
As for the car dealer analogy... If there's anything that the "technology age" is going to be remembered for, it going to be bad analogies. We're not talking about cars at all here, we're not talking about anything like them. Cars started out in a standardized atmosphere, and since then have become more and more and more proprietary.
We're talking about going in the opposite direction -- bringing a common, free shell/development environment to, once again, *all* of the major computing platforms.
check out http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ it's a dos port of GCC, which also includes most of the GNU tools you would find on a real Unix Box, including bash, ls, cp, grep, more, less, man, and much more, they have ported the vast majority of the GNU toolkit over to DOS, so I can load a Dos prompt, type bash and away I go, (or do the same from pure native DOS) :o)
Chris
See moderator, you stupid git, you've just made a work of art unviewable to newbie slashdotters. Why? Did you think that a funny little "killroy was here" picture in the middle of 200 largely uninformed posts (some of which have been modded up) was corruptive, somehow?
Mod the anonymous coward up, please. He deserves to be seen.
How is that flamebait? WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT GNOME IN WINDOWS?!?!?! like "hmm I think I'll use GNOME over the GUI it's trying to be in the first place" yeah thats makes sooo much sense
This makes no sense to me besides the "cool look what we did" factor.
Bwahaha! A refreshing bit of irony in a sea of zealotry; thank you, my friend.
Deo
Terradot.org: Growing Awareness
I think that all the people asking about why this is cool should have their slashdot logins revoked.
This is the coolest thing I have heard in a long time...
1.5 weeks!!!!
It's mind boggling. Charles Northrup will go down in my books as one of the great hackers of our time.
Just the sheer audacity to look at those bazillions of lines of code and say, "Dang it. Today I'm going to port those things to windows." A lesser man would have died on the spot at the prospect of such a tremendous undertaking. I would have died if someone had even shown me that much code, let alone told me to port it.
Mr Northrup, you are one crazy dude...
Having two task-bars and two desktops would get to be a pain very quickly.- -----
Possible answer: disable explorer.exe in the registry and run Gnome without it. If need be, bring in Litestep, or code from Litestep, to provide the necessary functionality.
I'm not sure I understand the reasons for this port, though. If it needs an X server, this is ^not^ an easier way to get software developed for both platforms, as their page implies. I run Unigraphics on NT using Exceed, and lemme tell ya, it's not all it's cracked up to be! I think Wine is still our first best hope for portability with Windoze.
Besides, anyone who wants to make their Windoze system can just download Litestep to use as a shell and use something like WindowBlinds to alter the appearance of the Explorer windows. *grin*
-----------------------------------------
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
While your comment is "right on" with what the /. readers at large want, it also contradict with the majority of the /. posters.
/. posters at large often cite they want to do) than our focus must be on creating "value" rather than "cool" projects if we are going to win.
Look at it this way: 15-20 years ago when consumers went to a car dealer, the car dealer (or TV add) talked to the consumer about the car's technology such as: what is the horse power, how often do I have to tune-it-up, is it fuel injection, how many sparks dose it have, etc. etc. Today, NONE of those are mentioned out. Just look at the TV adds, you will see that the adds are about "values" such as: comes with "on-star", customizable driver setting, automatic "spin" prevention, etc., etc.
So yes, while this project "was done in 1.5 weeks by ON PERSON" and I congratulate the person, (I am not against what he did) I still stand with my earlier statement: if Linux and Open Source is ever going to win over MS (which is what
-- George
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
OK folks. While the end result of this project is "cool" I fail to see the "value" that the end user will get from it.
I mean, do you think the Windows user is willing to learn yet-another-UI that sits next to the Windows UI?!!! Yes the technical group will be excited about this (as I am) but we make up only the very small % of the users at large.
Folks, call me crazy, but as long as Linux and the Open Source community keep there focus ENTIRELY on "cool" and technical-only-oriented projects, we will never be able to convince the Windows user to switch nor are we going to win new users.
Beside, the war is no longer againts MS's OS, it is now with MS's application as well as AOL's content offering.
-- George
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
I think we've been duped.
It appears that it isn't really replacing the windows interface, just running on top of it.
Maybe these designewrs are in cohoots with intel to use those spare cpu cycles up.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
...and use Cygwin, the Windows NT port of XFree86 will immediately become useful.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I run Unigraphics on NT using Exceed, and lemme tell ya, it's not all it's cracked up to be!
So quit using Exceed and start using XFree86 for NT.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They needed an X server and a commercial unix emulation package to do this.
KDE too started out relying on proprietary software but (with Trolltech's help) phased it out. Once XFree86 4 begins to work around buggy 16-bit code in Windows 9x (it already works fine on NT/2K) or Whistler is released, we will have our free X11 server for Windows. And it shouldn't be too much work to move from Uwin to Red Hat Cygwin, another POSIX layer for Windows.
Will I retire or break 10K?
XFree86 4 already works on Windows NT and Windows 2000; however, there is buggy 16-bit legacy code in Windows 9x's kernel and GDI that keeps the X server from working properly (according to the XFree86 for Windows FAQ). This should be less of a problem once Windows 2000 Personal (codename Whistler) is released.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Windows equivalent of Galeon (i.e. a stripped-down web browser using the Gecko engine from Mozilla) is k-meleon (no, despite the K, it has nothing to do with KDE).
Will I retire or break 10K?
I noticed that in all the screenshots it reads 12:00 a.m. or 0:00:00 anywhere that time is displayed. Window names also appear to be replaced with 5 asterisks. Doesn't really look polished yet.
I also find it funny that they had issues with GIMP. I have no problem running GIMP native on my windows machine.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Why? Well, maybe because if you get one "foot" ;) into the win desktop community and you get people used to Gnome then it would be easier for them to turn over to Linux!..
--
"No se rinde el gallo rojo, sólo cuando ya está muerto."
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
GNOME on Windows? Perverse! Why not integrate GNOME parts into the Linux kernel while they're at it! Oh wait, they already did :)
But seriously, this is very cool and even if YOU don't see any value in any of this, someone else will undoubtedly use it to make some cool stuff. People who bitch about projects like this (and especially Mozilla) don't always realize that the code is almost always developed for fun by volunteers. The time a volunteer spent coding the IRC client for Mozilla would likely not have been spent fixing bugs in the main source tree had the project never been started (because that is boring and hard work). But maybe, this volunteer who coded the IRC client for fun, fixed a couple of bugs in the main source tree to resolve issues he discovered while writing his own client. Something worth thinking about.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.gtlinc.c
______________________________
Eric Krout
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
They needed an X server and a commercial unix emulation package to do this.
What exactly was the point? Prove that Gnome is not portable?
PDHoss
======================================
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Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
Let's clear this up right good.
;) as the window manager for now and, when the next upgrade of Windows comes out, I can slip in Linux on the backend and no one outside my skull would know the difference. World domination, one company at a time?
The article says it took a 1.5 weeks to:
a) Make the code Windows-playable
b) Compile the code
They had to hunt throught 4 MILLION LINES OF CODE to locate certain disparities between Microsoft's idio(t)syncracies. They changed only 100 lines, which is pretty good.
Now, yes, you do need another package for it to properly work.
Big deal.
I can use Gnome (though I am a KDE man
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
this is not new. i've accidently(hehe) done this with several window managers including KDE!
just exported the the display to my win2k machine running exceed for NT and for Gnome run gnome-session as far as i recall!
What's next? Linux distributions that will run on a fat32 partition? A win32 binary of emacs? ...What!?!... Who in their right mind... bloody hell!
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
v.3.12
Please... no more giant buttons!
The guy who got Linux running on a Dreamcast was actually doing something useful ($99 computer with a decent OS, processor and net connection), but this is a total waste of 3 months of time.
What is the point of replacing a crap desktop with a worse one?
Wise up and go work out how to get better printer support into StarOffice (Word docs rarely print to my Postscript pronter) or expanding the number of motherboards we can use, or a decent file manager, better write access in MySQL, or faster process switching, or anything else which people need!
There are lots of interesting, technically challanging open source projects that could be handled before crud like this.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well contrary to your belief, not everyone that uses windows is a gamer. Some of us actually use it for business, to make money. And for me, any relief with the user interface is welcomed. Gnome on windows.. hmmmm, I like the sound of that. As long as it runs on Win2k.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If you really like Unix, but have to run windows, do what one of my professors do, and run evey GNU application you can find. (GCC, Emacs, etc) her desktop looks like a free software smorgasbord, and there's no _additional_ layer of interface between her and her computer.
-winter fantom
People, for the most part, are afraid to try Linux - they might lose their favorite apps., they might not be able to get support (OK, the last reason is ludicrous, but if you've only used Windoze, how woould you know?).
By moving a Linux desktop to Windoze, you get people more comfortable with their computer. The Windoze principles that they've always known and the programs that they've always had still work the same way. But it's a first step.
People will no longer have to make such a huge jump from Windoze to Linux. They'll already understand how the Gnome interface works, and with dual-booting, they can go into Windoze whenever they feel scared. As for the posix.dll file, that might make it easier for other *nix programs to run under Windoze, but I'm not too sure...
OTOH, that won't happen unless this works. If the Gnome interface runs poorly on Windoze, then why would it run good on Linux? We know the answer, but many other people don't. In short, this move is a huge benefit for Linux if it works, and a blow almost as bad as the Pro-Linux virus if it doesn't work. And if it does work and we start getting converts who already know Gnome - what WILL happen to KDE?
Want good Xmas music? Look for Manheim Steamroller!
SIG: HUP
Ok, that's a flame of some sort. But don't you guys think that is kind of pointless? Why support Windows?? Why bother?? Linux stuff running on Windows.. oh my God! I can't imagine KDE doing the same thing.
First of all, the existing Windows interface is alright, you can virtualy do anything you can with Gnome, and it does look and run sleeker.
Second, why bother with porting code to Windows platform? What is the intention of this? Who are the possible users? Are those Linux zealots that have to work on Windows (NO WAY!!!) and customize native applications to support Linux shortcuts/commands?
Now moderate me down.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
How can that stupid bee thing be the smallest ad? What about the IBM in atoms?
Now, you have the virtues of having both an X and VNC server at the same time. Port it to windows, get rid of that stupid explorer shell (is that possible ?), put gnome there...
And you end up with a big mess. That is, a ***ix UI on a M$ operating system. At least, it's going to give you a good april fish : tricking you friend into believe you'r runnig linux, but having windows instead (look at them jumpin' when they ain't no root). Moreover, with vnc, you will be able to screw up a lot more behind their back.More seriously anyway : one of the big advantage of that port is that you get an unified M$/Linux GUI, so you get GNOME applications across both OSes. IS that better that VMware ? I'm not so sure !
Another question : is that porting of gnome something more to credit to their U/WIN POSIX infrastructure than the GNOME code itself ? Granted, GNOME is clearly written in a well-portable way, but what else ?
[Pruneau
Cygwin is very cool. But it's too bad that it kind of runs in its own little box, pretty much unaware of the windows environment around it. What would be very cool is to have a bash shell that runs all the windows and dos commands, not just unix ones.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
er..no.
If GNOME is the first step, what is going to come next?
Do we plan on replacing DOS with bash?
--
"Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around." - They Might Be Giants, "We Want a Rock"
The problem I see is, from the screenshots, it doesn`t appear to be a shell replacement, it looks like it runs on top of explorer.exe. You can see the taskbar in the screenshots with tons of stuff open, and very little visible. I'm hoping I'm looking at it wrong. If not, that project would be pretty useless. Who wants a desktop that runs on top of another desktop, in windows? I happen to use Litestep and have been for a few months now, I have no complaints at all. I haven`t seen any loss in windows functionality, other than the smaller hit to system resources and longer uptimes in win98. ;-)
No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater.
This may not be something that very many people are going to do. Basically because anyone who wants to use gnome has gnome with linux. If they use windows at all they use it for games. However if we can get non-linux people to use gnome over windows then they will see, hey this linux aint so bad. It's a way we can get people to gradually switch to linux rather than jumping right in. It makes a new os less scary. However I want to see KDE not gnome. In my opinion KDE 2 is the best desktop ever. I "luff" it.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
already slashdoted? sombody put up mirrors!
I both agree and disagree with you. Gnome as a functional entity has certain major advantages over Litestep, running on an X server in a POSIX enabled environment, be it through a .dll or otherwise, that are mostly centered in its unity and thoroughness, coming from an environment where it has to be fully capable of all of the GUI and environment functions, and where such functions are easy for it to fill by design.
.dll's using Windows' framework and API base. It is not designed to be a fully independantly functional GUI and environment, it is simply designed to implement, as a shell, a far more functional and far more user-customizeable interface over the existing structure. Of COURSE functions like printing and file managing are still tied to the Explorer system; Litestep isn't designed to take over any of that because it works just fine natively through Windows. It's neither a part of Litestep's design and intended functionality nor a necessity for its environment.
However, you give Litestep far less credit than it is due. Litestep is not in the category that Gnome is, owing to the compromises forced upon it by its operating environment. It runs in Windows, on its own set of
Your complaint is rather like complaining that the roof over your head is insufficient because it doesn't have a kitchen sink or toilet installed, so "the whole idea is somewhat flawed" since you can't use it to go to the bathroom and wash your hands. If Litestep doesn't do what you want, you have the same options as everyone else. Write code to make it do what you want, or find another program that does what you want, or code something else to take up that functionality. It's the way a hacker does things.
I see a gnome through those windows... The windows broke, and the gnome now runs free...