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New GNUstep Releases

Posted by timothy on from the trained-dancing-gnus-frolic dept.

Martin writes: "GNUstep has reached release 0.7.5 of the GUI libraries as well as version 1.1.0 of its base library. Some enhancements include anti-aliased font support, spell checking, a great key-bindings system, a tool for inline Obj-C documentation, further Mac OS X compatibility, and much more ..."

16 comments

  1. Not so popular? by discoinferno · · Score: 1

    This story has been posted for 2 hours and nobody but one troll has replied?

    Looks like not too many slashdotters use GNUstep. I'd guess that everyone is probably waiting for KDE3. ;-)

    --
    - It's anarchy baby. Suck it up.
    1. Re:Not so popular? by MaxQuordlepleen · · Score: 1

      I wonder.

      I use Window Maker on my laptops, but I've never even looked at GnuStep. I'm guessing that there are a LOT of people who fit the same category. Maybe that will change if OS X ports start to happen...

    2. Re:Not so popular? by mirabilos · · Score: 1

      Usually, I don't even need X11.
      But some people do need, and I probably
      sometimes want to view some web site images,
      too. (Browsing still using lynx, but xv then.)

      Currently I use icewm, but _if_ *step runs on
      my box I'll now that I heard of it probably give
      it a shot.
      Earlier I admired NeXT boxen. Mac OS X is said
      to be good (never really seen one, though).
      But X11 is just plain slow. Ok, it's designed
      for networking, but it anyways sucks.

      If this gets me Display Postscript or some similar
      thing (I read the earlier GNUstep story a month or
      so ago), it be glad.
      However I cannot even print under *nix - I only
      own a 1982'er Epson FX-80 needle printer.
      Is it supported, somehow, somewhere? (ghostscript?)
      Also the paper size (30.48x21 cm) is a problem.

      --
      My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
    3. Re:Not so popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      X itself is not slow. Bloated toolkits are what make it slow.

    4. Re:Not so popular? by mirabilos · · Score: 1

      Ok, thanks, but how I circumvent those?
      wm2 is ok. But...

      Anyways, the network architecture is slow,
      eg. compared to Win32 local architecture.

      goodn8

      --
      My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
    5. Re:Not so popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Most all Epson printers are supported by Ghostscript. I had an FX-80 working under Linux about 5 years ago. It could produce reasonably decent output, but damn it was NOISY. In those days I compiled Ghostscript myself. You many have to too; I'm not sure if Epson FX-80 driver is built into what ships with RedHat/Suse/Debian etc.

      I was in Office Depot last week and they had a couple inexpensive inkjet printers in the $50 dollar range. You don't have to spend much money to get a basic printer these days. Time to upgrade! (heck, I found a working inkjet printer in someone's curbside trash once).

    6. Re:Not so popular? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyways, the network architecture is slow,

      You don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever done any X profiling? Running X server and applications on the same machine involves no networking.

    7. Re:Not so popular? by mirabilos · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the info, I have OpenBSD, but I don't
      know about the paper size. Is 30.48x21 cm any
      "standard" size (letter, ...)?
      As for the printer driver, I'll have a look at it.

      I won't upgrade to a newer printer as I always am
      cared of those plastic devices that they go defect,
      and I can't afford the ink either.
      Only if I had money I would use a Tektronix wax
      printer. I dislike Laser and especially Inkjet.

      My printer is rock solid ;)

      --
      My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)
  2. Mirrors and useful info by Adrian+Voinea · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are a few mirrors of the GNUstep pages. Choose the one that is closest to you:
    Georgia, USA, France, Europe, Germany, Europe.

    GNUstep is an attempt to provide an Object-Oriented application development framework and tool set for use on a wide variety of computer platforms. GNUstep is based on the original OpenStep specification provided by NeXT, Inc. (now Apple).

    GNUstep is written in Objective-C, the language from which the Signal/Slot concept of Qt was borrowed. Objective-C is basically standard C with one single syntax addition and a dozen or so additional keywords. That is all that is needed to implement an object system that is more powerful than that of that other language. In Objective-C all method calls are done via a mechanism that is similar to, but slighly more efficient than, the signal/slot mechanism of Qt. This has some interesting implications for the implementation of remote method invocation, on object serialization and some other things that are very hip in a Corba context.

    Like Nextstep, GNUstep has a record of technical excellence that even today is unmatched by any other object framework, and of abysmal PR performance (also unmatched :-). A current commercial implementation of the same API (same API, different code) is the foundation of MacOS X.

  3. Can I? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been most interested in Gnustep.

    I own a modest machine, a Pentium One 133 Mhz 32MB and I'm very conscious about performance.

    Is Gnustep lighter than Gnome or KDE? How does it compare to XFCE?

    1. Re:Can I? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      PI mmx, 166 to 233 mhz: $5-15 on ebay
      edo sticks, 8 to 32 mb per: $10-30 new, $cheap on ebay
      not having to look at twm/fvwm any more: priceless

      ;-)

      I used a p166 w/ 48 ram for quite a while with Blackbox. It ran like a charm and looked good to boot... GNUstep, sort of like KDE and GNOME, relies on background daemons for some of it's functionality, so there will be more overhead than a "plain" windowmanager. When I played with it I found it to be less resource intensive than either KDE or GNOME. YMWV.

  4. So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This story would be more informative if it included a project status report. Such as "Another year has passed and GNUStep is close to reaching 60% compatibility with OPENSTEP 4.0. Three Cheers to the 1 and half guys working on GNUStep every third weekend!"

    Not to discourage anyone, but GNUStep has to be the most seriously overhyped project in the open source world. It moves like a snail, and runs no applications and is based on a programming language that nobody wants to use and is generally useless. Even though OpenStep clawed it's way out of the grave, there's still only like 20 programmers that use it.

    Why not cover the interesting stuff where there's some development action -- VirtualDub or some of the other video stuff, for example.

    1. Re:So? by morbid · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Oh, I don't know. I'll be giving it a try since I want something more lightweight than GNOME or KDE and less band-wagon oriented (.NET/C++).
      I also fancy learning a bit of Objective-C.

      --
      I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
  5. Yes by nicestepauthor · · Score: 2, Informative

    The window manager for GNUstep is WindowMaker, and it is lightweight to run on anything. I have run it on a 486/33 with 16 meg of RAM. I also use WindowMaker every day on a Pentium I. with 64 (formerly 32) meg of RAM. It is definitely lighter weight than KDE or GNOME, both of which should still be useable on your Pentium.