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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."
This is almost what I want.
_ __
I am getting tired of my Gnome and KDE. I am starting to long for the days when I used WindowMaker, Postilion and FSviewer together with a cobbled up list of other xapps to get my job done simply.
The problems are paramount. Fsviewer barely works on my updated SuSE 7.3 Postilion does not like my cutting edge versions of tcl/tk and I am not yet ready to give up the laundry list of apps I need to do business for a barebones environment. Plus, I like unified look and feel that I get with say KDE or Gnome.
If I got a distribution with a laundry list of apps centered around those apps with a Nextish look and feel then I would be a happy man.
The problem with Simply GNUstep is that it is what it says it is. It is Linux with GNUstep already built and configured but it has nothing else.
If it was supplemented with other X apps with a Next feel or gtk apps with a Next theme maybe into a usable package then I think I would be in love.
_______________________________________________
ACK
When you do an install of FreeBSD, you can just choose the 'windowmaker desktop' option.
Why pick yet another Linux Distro (This is this weeks Distro of the week) when you can pick FreeBSD, an OS that has shipped with a NeXTish interface for years.
(Oh, and you get to avoid GNOME or KDE bloat, at least until you install gnumeric.)
That's not meant as a flame. I'm just curious why they chose Linux instead of a BSD. I don't exactly care to follow the licensing terms behind all the different open/free software so I'm unaware if that's an issue, but using a BSD would seem to be a wiser choice being that they're "trying" to get an OS X on x86.
I dunno.
No sig for you!!
GNUStep is arguably more impoartant than KDE or GNOME for the future of linux, and it deserves a larger audience (for testing, etc), and it can be a pain to configure, compile, and install, so a distro is good for those reasons.
However, I'm not sure it's ready yet. redraws are slower than mollasses headed uphill in January, and the sample applications (what little there is) are characterized by a lack of features and a tendency to crash.
When GNUStep is ready for prime time, I'll be happy. Hopefully, this can help that day come sooner
I remember trying to get GnuStep to work a few months back. The code compiled pretty cleanly, and I played around a bit with the development framework for GNUStep (which is rather cool btw, makes writing build files for apps extremely clean, and ObjectiveC is an extremely nice language).
I just wish there was a better way of integrating GNUStep, KDE, and Gnome. I really think a concerted effort by all three teams to support a common base (common component interfaces, clipboard, look&feel configuration files) would be beneficial for all involved.
GNUStep brings with it a good, tried&true development framework.
KDE & Gnome are both more evolved, with more and better applications.
Getting these to work together would be a worthwhile proposition.
-Laxitive
Looks like it is x86 for now. Anyone know if they are aiming for a PPC version as well?
Of course that may be a bit pointless given you can get Mac OS X which is more mature, but it would still be interesting to see it.
What willbe really interesting is if this becomes kine of like a "Mine", allowing PC users to run some select Mac OS X software along with their Linux apps. Think of this as a way for Apple to take a more back door foray into the x86 world, to expand use of Apple's software and show people how cool some of Apple's software on the Mac is by getting iTunes and such to run on this thing. It would certainly give PC users who used this (who I admit would likely not be your run of the mill PC user) a taste of Apple's world without them having to go out and purchase a Mac right away.
Maybe wishful thinking, but any alternative to the current status quo (i.e. Windows) is welcome at this point even if it doesn't do all I hope it eventually can.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Back when Apple bought NeXT, I wrote a letter to Jobs suggesting that he release NeXTstep for every platform, make it open source, and become one of the standard APIs that developers use.
My point was that if he did this, and developers did adopt the platform, he'd end up with lots of apps that would run on the Mac, and would thereby neutralize the Windows API proprietary boondoggle.
He ignored my advice at the time, and this is nice, but too little too late to solve the problem of creating a true platform-independent API that developers would want to write to.
Low system requirements. Not every machine has the half gig of ram required to run KDE without swapping.
Depends on which kernel. As I said, I really like
the BSD userland stuff. The FreeBSD bootup driver
switching utility is quite impressive. But I like
the broader driver support that Linux has, and
the build tools to recompile the kernel on linux
are nice. If it wern't for those two features,
I probably would prefer the FreeBSD kernel, although
when it comes to userland features, I actually
prefer OpenBSD.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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.
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.
The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. ~F. Bastiat
Same goes for SGI.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
What's so hard to grab some screenshots and put them up there? I've used the NeXT machines before, and have used WindowsMaker, so I know what to expect. But still, I'd like to see screenshots. And if it looks ugly, I won't even bother. And I want to see the boot up screen too.
And you can get more users to try it out too, if they can see something before they download that 110MB of data. Even at that "small size", it's still a lot, for people like me who don't have access to high speed internet.
I went to the site and the ISO they have for download doesnt exist! stage1.iso.zip isnt there!
:(
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
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.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Uhm.. while I do like BSD, isn't this posting basically just "I dislike Linux, and want something more BSD".. what exactly is so interesting about it?
If you like BSD better, why not just use it?
I think the really interesting part is the IDE; If you have a fairly simple way to extend your computer experience, you get a little more attached to what you use and enjoy it a lot more.
Don't forget there are a lot of intelligent people who enjoy tinkering with things (computers and OSes included) but can't afford to spend too much time...
If the developers also choose a well rounded set of applications, then we'll have an interesting alternative to packing a zillion apps (almost) noone will use and creating yet another distro that confuses users about the choices, rather than being itself an alternative choice.
By having something simple you can use and extend, you are also a lot more motivated to actually use it and stick with it, rather than observe at amazement and then go back to .
Perhaps, simplicity is itself a choice sorely missed all too often nowadays...
Or my Athalon, or any of the Sparcs, or really anything that I have lying around generally
It means I don't have to by a new box to run it.
And I don't use anything to oppose Microsoft, I do use it becuase I prefer it, I can configure it the way I want, and I know that it lets me interface cleanly with the *NIX machines I use, ranging from OpenBSD firewall to UNICOS supercomputers.
Besides, if you'd actually read about it, you'd know that it uses Objective C, and fits in at the level of GNOME and KDE. It's not a kernel.
People with this holier than thou attitude really need a reality check. Why does not having a TV make you a better person? I have a TV, but I don't waste every waking minute in front of it. Still, it does me good to be in on the pop culture of our times. Without a TV I wouldn't be as much a part of US society. But if you don't want a TV, I applaud that. Just don't go hyping how awesome you are for not having a TV.
Same thing goes for you. You make this implication that the second Linux became profitable and useable by the masses of computer geeks, it became not elitist. And so when BSD reaches this point, where it becomes massively accepted and useful for many things, will you then decide it too is not elite enough for you?
Is Microsoft Windows the greatest? No. Is Linux the greatest? No. Is MacOS the greatest? No. Is BSD the greatest? No. Every single one has something about them that someone doesn't like. Personally, I'm really learning to love linux, but it's taking time. Will I tell others how I think Linux is generally better for a lot of productivity and security things? Yes. Will I try cramming it down their throats how brain-dead and worthless everything about MS Windows is? No, not unless I feel like being a real ass.
BTW, good job with making this post a subtle enough troll not to get you modded down as such. Too bad people actually modded it up.
If you like the DOC Edit.com the you'd like EE (Easy Editor)
s /h andbook/editors.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/book
It's got the menuing hand-holding of DOS Edit - and it's small.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
You use vi - not only because you need to edit source files - but also to satisfy some aesthetic impulse which is atavistic and minimal?
Wild trolling!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
NeXTstep is state-of-the-art GUI design, circa. 1985-1990. At the time, it was easily 10 years ahead of anything else available.
:-)
:-) years ago.
But here we are 17 years later, and everyone has finally had a chance to catch up. (Except for Apple, who is now a good 5 years ahead of everyone else by basing their system on NeXTstep
The beauty of NeXTstep was the underlying Objective-C APIs and the dev tools. Amazing, simply amazing. The "build a text editor in under 1 minute without even compiling" example was always a winner.
Using GNUstep w/ WindowMaker is pretty close to the look of NeXTstep, but just seems to be lacking in the "feel" department (that from running GNUstep on my PC, right next to NeXTstep on my 68040 NeXTstation.)
Of course, that was over a year ago, so things might have changed a lot with GNUstep/WIndowMaker since then.
If you can get yourself a NeXT machine cheap, go for it. Heck, you might even be able to find an old Intel of HP machine with NeXTstep on it. But don't expect it to be a dailt use machine. I recently picked up a Mac Classic at a garage sale for the same reason: it's fun to remember what computers were like just a few (well, 12-15
"Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
If this is a Linux based system, will RMS flame us is we don't call it GNU/Linux/GNUStep?
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Um, speak for youself. I use vim because I can get the most done with the fewest keystrokes, not out of some weird sence of nostalga, that and Emacs took up too much memory on my original system (I had to exit out of the editor to free up enough memory for the compiler). These days with vim the size argument is pretty much moot (there's not a lot of difference at times), but I've become more efficent with vi like editors so I stay with it.
I read the internet for the articles.
This is why I use Slackware. :D
... I think I forgot my original point.
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?
Look over there!
That said, Objective-C also has many fine attributes, and has never gained the popularity it deserves. Objective-C (gcc is Apple's Obj-C compiler also) is fully compiled and has great legacy compatibility with C, both desirable attributes when compared with Java. There are other tradeoffs between the languages, but Objective-C looks like a great Java alternative in certain circumstances. It also looks like a fun 'recreational language' for side projects.
I was considering one of the new iMacs anyhow, it's good to see that much code might port to an open source setting also! :-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I like the Linux core, I enjoy and am comfortable with Linux as a kernel and the GNU/Linux combo as an OS. I want a better GUI on top of it that pleases my aesthetic sense, makes my life easier when I want it to be easier, doesn't feature at least two separate tracks of font management systems, lots of apps of massively disjoint look-and-feel and more widget toolkits than I care to think about. In other words, Simply GNUStep is a good move, but why don't we consider dropping the X windows? Furthermore, why don't we consider taking this a step further? Hell, OS X took the old NextStep stuff and improved it dramatically. Why don't we do the same, and not be constrained by OS X or attempt to parrot or copy it, and see if we can improve on it?
I agree that source level compatibility with OS X is a nice feature at this point in time since lots of Cocoa apps are being written (primarily because OS X is doing so well), and I like the *Step environments. But I'd like to see some innovation from the Open Source world too.
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
Think about it, build Gnustep over Darwin x86 and you have... A Frankenstein's monster version of Mac OS X for x86.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
This isn't a new OS, it's a linux distroid designed to focus on and exploit GNUStep.
GNUStep isn't an OS, it's the API from NeXTSTEP.
It's supposedly really really cool to program in because Objective-C is a lot more dynamic in its design than C++. (Much less type checking = less recompilation, more rapid development, it's a lot more like working in Smalltalk or a scripting language like Ruby. So I hear from people who use Objective-C in my company.)
HOWEVER it ain't ready, GNUStep is still laying the foundations. When they're all laid, it should be possible to add a lot of very good apps very fast. (NeXT is most famous for having been something you can develop apps very well and fast in.)
This is an interesting start.
GNUStep apps should be relatively easy to port to Cocoa and vice versa, that's the extent of the connection.
All this yammering about how pretty the window decorations are is silly. It ain't about looking like candy, it's about being pleasant to use and working well.
All this stuff about "being the next BeOS" is silly too. This isn't about users... not yet. It's about developers. It isn't a new OS, it's a new programming environment and a Linux distro optimized for it.
Get a Mac.
:)
DisplayPDF, Aqua window manager, a Dock, Finder (with three view modes), Mail.app, and all for a low price of $1,799!
You even get a DVD-R and LCD screen out of it
GPL Deconstructed
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Put the taskbar at the *top* of the screen, where God intended it to be (at least that's what he told me over a beer last Wednesday).
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
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.
Okay, maybe I'm confused over a few things here but I'm failing to see the point of this project?
WindowMaker has already been around for awhile and comes with it's own GNUstep like interface (or it is it's own GNUstep interface if you want to split hairs). If you don't like WindowMaker, then use AfterStep which again gives you the NeXT type interface (dock, clip, etc.). Either of these can be installed onto any Linux distro. You can install RedHat and get all the cool hardware detection with it and just don't install KDE/Gnome/etc. then grab the latest WindowMaker/AfterStep files and you have the same thing this is offering. So where's the magic?
Some of the features it's touting:
Uses the latest linux kernels and its latest features (ie: pure devfs, framebuffer)
Great, except according to some people here it has a lot of problems just installing. Besides, in a few weeks (or whenever the next update happens) the latest kernels will be out of date. You may as well just ftp your own kernels and compile them for your own system.
Graphical Boot-Up (no confusing Linux kernel messages)
Personally I like seeing the messages boot up so I know what sub-systems and modules are being loaded. If my sound module fails at least I know it.
Kept as simple as possible (no GNOME, no KDE, etc, just GNUstep)
Just install any linux distro without KDE/Gnome and slap on WindowMaker/AfterStep and you get the same thing right? So how is this a selling feature?
So we've already got this if you want it. Just go and grab whatever window manager suits your taste. If this is a move towards Mac OS X compatibility then great, but it seems like a very small step as there is a LOT of work ahead to even get something close to that.
Personally it just seems like a waste to bundle it with yet another copy of Linux. Separate it out (unless there's something special you're doing with the kernal) as a download so anyone can grab it in less than 10 minutes and let us decide which kernel to use for the base.
At the very least, toss up a few screenshots, make the download availalbe in a few formats and provide a little more information about what features this has or will have. What's the big picture and where is it leading?
liB
It's not just coincidence that having the menu appear below the pointer is a lot faster, or that buttons along the edge are faster to access because you can't overshoot. This phenomena is an example of Fitts' Law (check out usability guru Bruce Tognazinni's article here ). One of the ways that GNUstep truly thrashes KDE usability-wise is that the GNUstep environment has really large buttons often with text right under the icon. By the nature of their size, these buttons can be accessed with a mouse far faster than the really tiny toolbar buttons you often see in other desktop environments. The labels for the buttons also give a clear indication as to what action the button performs; there is no need for the user to try and decipher what a particular icon stands for.
KDE, on the other hand, blindly copies microsoft's system of extremely tiny, unlabelled toolbar buttons that have extremely slow mouse access times and extremely small and cryptic icons whose true nature can only be discovered by either clicking on the toolbar button and possibly performing a destructive task or painstakingly holding the mouse over the toolbar button for several unbearable seconds to get the tooltip. "But Microsoft spends zillions of dollars on usability research" some say. And they spend tens of zillions on security research with results just as good. Microsoft is by far the most frequent inductee into the user interface hall of shame , and such windows UI shennanigans as multi-level tabs, window in window MDI, and Window XP/2000's dynamic menus have been frequently and harshly criticized in the UI design community. "But Windows users coming to Linux will be familiar with lots of really tiny, confusing, toolbar buttons with slow access times" they say. Windows users are certainly familiar with the Blue Screen of Death--maybe we should put stuff in the linux kernel to make it crash so they'll feel right at home. Yes, I know that there are options in KDE to have icons and text appear together. But this is not done by default. And probably 90% of users end up using the default which is installed with their application/OS. If you don't believe me, just ask Netscape. In the cold, hard reality of end-user desktop UI design, not doing something by default is really the same thing as not doing it.
I challenge the KDE Usability project to, by default, give KDE have large, labelled toolbar buttons that are fast to access and easy to understand. They of course don't have to take this challenge; some people would prefer linux not to get on the desktop.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Actually, when I started using Linux about 3 years ago, I had a hard time moving from edit.exe, which I still prefer over notepad and other windows editors. On Linux I've found jed to be closest to it, plus it has syntax hilighting and other cool features. RedHat ships with jed, but doesn't install it by default. It is usually on the second cd.
You forgot:
GoATSTEPx: a wide-open public-domain environment supporting hot-plugging of peripherals soon to be cleaned up and released by Microsoft. (It's easy to tell where the first patch will be applied!)
graspee
Right now, there doesn't seem to be any way of getting a complete installation of GNUstep through the Debian package system (you get some libraries, but that's all as far as I can tell). I wouldn't mind giving GNUstep a try, but I'm not going to throw out my whole Linux installation. I suspect many others are in the same boat, and a complete set of easy-to-set-up GNUstep packages for Debian would probably reach more people at this point than a separate distribution.
That is an advantage to a commercial unix or a BSD over linux; you get a non-bloated working system, then you add stuff you like. It's just a cleaner way to work.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
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
/., your project has
l
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
received roughly 2241 downloads of the ISO image provided through your
download page at: http://simplygnustep.sourceforge.net/Download.htm
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
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
I know it's offtopic....
Why does not having a TV make you a better person?
I don't have a TV either. I don't believe that it makes me a better person. However, when I mention that I don't have a TV, a lot of people immediately get very defensive. Bear in mind that I don't go around advertising this fact. It's more like,
"Did you see Friends last night?"
"No, missed it."
"What, how could you miss Friends?!!"
"I don't own a TV."
For whatever reason, people tend to get really defensive, as if they feel attacked. The reaction is almost exactly like when I've told pot smokers that I don't smoke pot. It's not an uncommon response for them to ask, "What? Do you think that makes you better than me?" even though I made no indication that it was a moral issue. This is the response of someone who feels guilty for their behavior, right or wrong as it may be to feel that way. In the context of such an exchange, I might actually reply, in exasperation, that not owning a TV or not smoking pot or whatever it may be really does make me a better person. I think that's where the sig comes from.
Besides, TV really does suck. Can you make any argument in favor of owning a TV? Well, it looks as though you did.
Still, it does me good to be in on the pop culture of our times. Without a TV I wouldn't be as much a part of US society.
Does this really sound that convincing to you? It's just a pretty way of saying that TV is a cultural normalizer. Have you noticed that in any given time of day, all the major networks have rather similar shows? That's because TV programming is predicated on uniformity of its audience.
If you watch a person's behavior when they shoot up smack, it's the same as when they watch TV. The eyes gloss over, the body slumps, the brain goes into an alpha state, etc. Look at how a person watches TV. What's channel surfing? It's looking for something to lull the viewer into a trance. If people really watched for content they would stick to certain shows, or just rent DVDs. That's far from the norm. The norm is to get off work and look through the channels for something to dullen the senses, just like a closet drunk looking in various hiding places around the house for a bottle stashed away. This may seem like an extreme comparison. Bear in mind that liver damage will cut a person's life by ten years perhaps. How many years do people surrender to TV, thirty minutes at a time?
Do I really think I'm better than you for not owning a TV? No. But I do feel like I'm enjoying a freedom of mind that a lot of people choose to give up in order to pass the time. Perhaps they view the choice of what to do with their free time as a burden. Maybe they are really concerned with what will happen on Survivor. I just happen not to feel that way. But if someone should get defensive with me when I tell them so, I'd probably give it right back to them.
The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. ~F. Bastiat
# cat > /etc/rc.conf
That way, I know I won't be hosed by any text editor.
How many companies retain their CEO, President, CTO, have their development teams made primary and and their product become the central one at a company after being bought out? Next bought Apple, for negative $400 million - not a typo.
I think it was a good thing: Copeland was a disaster, Gershwin a pipe dream, Apple was unable to do what needed to be done, unable to reign in their development teams nor drop their committment to 100% backwards compatibilty, and frankly the move seems to have been good for BOTH OS's. But look whose running the show - it's the Next folks.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Now now, I've used NeXTStep for a long time too.
It was pretty neat -- I liked the simple interface.
Some of the netinfo stuff was a bit difficult to
use, IIRC -- it was kind of hard to make DNS
work on it. I actually still have a NeXT slab
on my desk. I don't log into it much, but I love
the monitor... I hope that the GNUStep project
ends up a success -- I loved programming on NeXTStep
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I just have some complaints about Linux and where
it's going. Older versions of Redhat, like 4.x and
5.x were pretty nice. I like slackware, but I need
a solution that works on more hardware than x86.
I generally don't tend to be raving about OS's
anymore. When I was younger, I was an OS/2 user,
and did that then, but now I'm generally happy
with a simple, generic Unix with good hardware
support and little hassle compiling stuff myself.
Opensource is a plus. Linux used to be like that,
but it seems that the distributions I liked in
the past are becoming less to my liking as time
goes on. Will BSD ever go that way? I hope not --
if it does I'll move on if possible. I do, as
noted, like the way the linux kernel is configured. If someone had a crossplatform
Linux distro with a very minimal, nonintrusive
package system, very vanilla but up-to-date
pieces, I'd consider moving to it instead. If
you know of such a distro, tell me...
I'm not, at least in this message, talking about
windows. I just have some severe issues with
redhat's technical decisions and the way other
distributions reproduce said decisions.
Is this really a troll in your eyes?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
There were valid reasons for Rhapsody getting canned.
First off it offered almost no migration path. Sure the MacOS virtual environment was listed but this was considered a hollow promise unikely to succeed. Furthermore it was off on it's own - no interaction with the rest of the system, an abandoned stepchild.
Second there was no way to port old code to the new platform. Everything would have to be rewritten, from scratch, using the Next frameworks. While Next's stuff was widely admired companies had millions of dollars invested in their existing code bases plus almost no one familier with the Next material.
So, faced with rewriting everything for a new OS on a platform that at the time had been steadily declining (this was pre-iMac) or having their exisiting code relegated to some lame-ass virtulaiziation environment while at the same time WinNT was requiring a ramp up and going great guns... Sorry no way Apple.
Even the promise of cross-platform support couldn't change that. Everyone is and was well familier with the "It ain't done 'till 123 won't run" strategies of MS and suspected that even if a decent Rhapsody layer were shipped for Wintel it wouldn't be long before some Windows revision broke it, leaving Apple & MS in an arms war Apple couldn't win.
Today Apple is suffering with the wins and losses of it's revised strategy with the Carbon campatibility layer. It's enabled lots of products to move over quickly but they're not really native and so aren't able to take full advantage of the new OS nor show it off to it's full potential. I expect next year once Apple's got Carbon tweaked to the point it's widely usable they'll then start pushing devopers to begin making the transition to Cocoa, likely by pushing lots of the services and features Cocoa has and which won't be made accessable to Carbon. Apple has already made more availiable to Carbon then they had planned but I expect we won't see much more - Apple wants that pressure.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Arent all programs 'partialy source compatible' with an OS that has that particular compiller this could be great in terms of colaberation and future development but it also could be nothing mroe than empty hype.
--aiee
...and digging into SourceForge this way shows no files either. Anyone have a link that works?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Close... but not quite.
NeXTSTEP: Not the hardware, but the original OS made by NeXT. Versions 0.3 - 3.3.
The NeXT cube, NeXT Turbo Cube, NeXT Station, NeXT Color Station, NeXT Turbo Station, and NeXT Color Turbo Station are the names of the computers NeXT sold.
OpenStep: The OpenStep API was a bit different than the original NeXTSTEP API. The "open" part of the moniker denotes that it was an open API spec, and OpenStep followed this spec. This allows for other implementations to happen, like GNUstep or OpenStep for Solaris. Versions 4.0 - 4.2.
Yes, I did say OpenStep for Solaris. There was also an OpenStep Enterprise for Windows. OpenStep for Solaris allowed you to run an OpenStep environment and related apps on top of X11, rather like GNUstep does. It ran it's own OpenStep window manager, but still allowed vanilla X apps.
OSE for Win32 was the OpenStep API for Windows, allowing one to develop and run OpenStep apps on Windows. While it didn't change the shell/wm like in OS/Solaris, you could run OpenStep apps remotely, including the Dock and WorkSpace.app- which was pretty cool to see. The widgets were given a bit more of a Windows look.
Rhapsody: Wasn't dropped entirely, as you say. The original Rhapsody vision was dropped, but Rhapsody was released as Mac OS X Server 1.x. Mac OS X Server 2.0 is based on Mac OS X 10.0, however.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Objective-C++ doesn't allow you to use C++ syntax to program in Obj-C, nor does it allow you to use the Objective-C runtime and syntax to instantiate and send messages to C++ objects, nor does it allow you to use C++ to instantiate and send messages to Objective-C classes and objects.
What it does allow you to do is mix Objective-C and C++ in the same source file, using C++ syntax to deal with C++ classes and objects, and the Obj-C runtime/syntax to deal with Obj-C classes and objects. They're still quite seperated. However, I don't imagine it would be hard to have an automated conversion process going. The only real blocking point on that one is the static and opaque nature of C++, where Objective-C is dynamic and reflective enough to allow such tricks.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Man, why not replace it with Rhapsody DR2? A bit slicker than DR1.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I think pliant (the language) did what you're talking about. Also, my project, DynaPad , which strives to create a dynamic and consistent PDA operating environment may use Linux as it's kernel, mostly to cannabilize drivers. The nature of Squeak is such that it can be run on top of any OS, but the Linux kernel may be a convenient base. It's completely unlike a Unix environment.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Sometimes I can easily copy/paste between apps, while other times it just doesn't happen. Chances are good that I'm being a dolt, but it's one of my biggest complaints about the X-GUI's.
That is one of many things that will never work "right" (i.e. as well as win/mac),
because X sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls.
C-X C-S
I like MacOS X, but I figure Apple's going to be out of business within 5 years, and I need an exit strategy.
;-)
Well, that's what I thought about NeXT round about 1997, but then they merged with a company that had a whole lot of cash in the bank and was trading for less than the value of their real estate
Apple's got a pretty impressive track record for surviving after events that were supposed to spell Apple's doom. I remember reading a whole lot of "well, that about wraps it up for Apple" messages when IBM entered the PC business.
I just started a job at Apple on 1/2/2002, and even though many people consider me quite the risk-taker when it comes to which companies I work with, I hardly think I'm sticking my neck out this time w/r/t the company's long-term prospects.
This company's got billions in the bank, it has the most loyal customer base I could possibly imagine, it sets the standard for quality of UI, and just rolled out yet another round of killer products this week at MacWorld.
Mind you, when someone showed me something I liked better than the Mac, I switched. (Mac to NeXT in 1989.) When someone shows me something better than the Mac, I'll switch again, but I sure don't see it on the horizon.
-jcr (Working at Apple now, adjust salt as you see fit.)
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
that's because God doesn't get carpal tunnel sydrome from pushing the mouse around. Pulling (down) is easier on the arm, and its easier to aim.
In some ways this was very nice. It certainly required the fewest possible operations to copy something, and did not require any key assignments. Technically it is exactly the same as drag & drop (which everybody ooh's and aah's over for some reason...) but with the advantage that you could rearrange windows before you "dropped" (ie no need for Mac "spring loaded folders" or any other hacks).
It has losing points that people are aware of: any selection anywhere destroys the clipboard, making *replacement* of text impossible without planning ahead and requiring extra mouse clicks. It also required you to point the mouse even if the cursor was already at the correct location for the paste (some programs made middle click only do the paste and not the click because of this, resulting in inconsistent behavior).
The Motif people did figure out the correct way to emulate Windows/Mac was to have a second buffer called the CLIPBOARD. This is obvious if you think about middle mouse as drag & drop, there is no reason that dragging data should change the clipboard! Fortunately X already had support for an arbitrary number of such buffers due to some bogus and best-forgotten ideas about "secondary selection" and so on so it was easy to do this.
However all other toolkits were concerned about interoperability between them and older programs that did not understand CLIPBOARD. So they tended to just use the SELECTION for Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. This confused Windows users no end because selection of text still changed the clipboard, and made Ctrl+C be a no-op in most cases.
Motif died for very good reasons, but since it understood clipboard, this is why you hear complaints that you cannot cut/paste from Netscape into other programs. Middle-mouse has always worked, though.
Fortunately in the last year GTK decided to switch to the Motif model of CLIPBOARD. It sounds like the next version of Qt (and thus KDE) also does this. I personally have fixed my own software to obey this.
Unlike common perception the programs on X do not all use incompatable cut & paste, though. They all agree on the initial design. It is the attempts to emulate an outside design, with no standards, that they disagree on. If Windows added middle-mouse paste today you can be certain that years from now there would be many programs that still "can't cut and paste correctly" on that platform, too!
Ah vim, how do I hate thee, let me <OL> the ways:
- Multiple level undo implemented incorrectly
- The "s" command will remove text from your screen when it shouldn't
- Just because I hit enter, doesn't mean I want the next line indented
- Lame starting splash screens
- Pointless row and column markers at the bottom of the screen
- Telling me I'm in insert mode unneccesarily (Which really sucks when you have to wait for the cursor to do this on a slow connection)
Yes, most of this can be turned of. But why should I be turning off stupid default behavior because someone's decided to come along and make their defaults broken? No, it would have been much better if redhat et al decided to ship nvi 1.79 (The newer nvi's seem to be travelling down the same road vim's gone down. Luckily 1.79 works perfectly and probably won't ever need to be updated.)When I was able to do my own spam-armoring, you got a chance to email me. Now you can only hope I see your reply.