GTK+OSX for Mac OS X Aqua

Scott Sheppard writes "GTK+OSX has released a native Mac OS X Aqua port of the Linux-based GTK+ open source graphical user interface library. GTK+ (GIMP Toolkit) is a popular widget library supporting graphical applications for Linux. GTK+OSX version 0.1 is an alpha release intended for developers." This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads without installing XDarwin and OroborOSX. Looking good!

Comments

Article text (AC not whore)

[Anonymous Coward]

GTK+OSX has released a native Macintosh Aqua port of the Linux-based GTK+ open source graphical user interface library. GTK+ (GIMP Toolkit) is a popular widget library supporting graphical applications for Linux. GTK+OSX version 0.1 is an alpha release intended for developers.

"This is great news for the Mac OS X developer community," says Macworld UK contributing editor Scott Sheppard. "It means that many popular Linux programs can be ported to run natively with Mac OS X's Aqua user interface, avoiding the hassle of users having to run an X server."

GTK+OSX is a spin-off from the Film Gimp project (www.FilmGimp.org). GTK+ is utilized by Film Gimp and many other Linux programs including those of GNU and GNOME. Mac OS X users greeted Mac Film Gimp with enthusiasm at its release earlier in December. But, that X-based compatibility version was merely the first step. GTK+OSX is being developed as the underpinnings for a native Aqua-based Mac OS X port of Film Gimp, scheduled for Q2 2003.

GTK+OSX project manager Robin Rowe is also the release manager for Film Gimp. "As soon as we released the Fink-based version of Film Gimp we began looking for ways to port natively to Mac OS X", says Rowe. "Andy and I began researching different ways of doing that, either switching to another toolkit or making GTK+ run directly on Aqua."

GTK+OSX lead developer Andy Prock is also the Mac port lead for Film Gimp. "My curiosity got the better of me", says Prock. "I discovered an abandoned GTK+ for OS 9 Sourceforge project called gtk-mac, and that became the basis for GTK+OSX". GTK+ co-maintainer Owen Taylor says, "The GTK+ team is happy to see the GTK+OSX project working on bringing the power and flexibility of GTK+ to OS X."

GTK+ has not been available running natively on Macintosh, although there is a native port of GTK+ for Windows. Mac Film Gimp and other GTK+ applications currently use Fink and the XDarwin X server, a technology that enables X Windows programs to run on the Mac almost seamlessly. The relationship between Darwin/Aqua is roughly the same as Linux/X. Both Linux and Darwin are open source, but the Macintosh Aqua interface is not. A fully open source alternative is Darwin/XDarwin. XDarwin enables X to run on Darwin, and it can run "rootless" on the Aqua desktop if a user wishes to run both. However, there's overhead and complexity to running two graphics interfaces simultaneously. That's why it is desirable to have GTK+ run natively on Mac Aqua without X.

Apple offers four GUI toolkits: Cocoa, Java2, Carbon, and Classic. Carbon and Cocoa are both native Aqua interfaces. Aqua renders utilizing Quartz, a technology Apple based upon NeXT Display Postscript. For GTK+OSX a Carbon-based design was chosen over Cocoa because Rowe was influenced by Patrick Beard's description of the challenges Mozilla Chimera experienced working with Cocoa and Objective C (see http://www.opensourceprogrammers.org/meeting/2002/ Jun19.html). "We wanted an easy-to-maintain design, that would play nice with the Linux and Windows versions of GTK+", says Rowe. "That meant choosing Carbon and C, rather than Cocoa and Objective C."

A three-step process was mapped for developing the GTK+OSX library. First, do the trivial GTK+ program Hello World, then a mid-sized Linux application, then major applications such as Film Gimp. Rowe had written an article about porting the Linux-based Gothello GTK+ program to Windows (see http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5574), making it an obvious choice as a test program for a Mac port. Mac Gothello is the first real program to utilize GTK+OSX. Both are available for download at the GTK+OSX site at SourceForge.

* Pricing and Availability

Free at http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net. GTK+OSX is available as source tarball (gz). Download version 0.1 or higher, about 8mb. Optional Mac Gothello download is about 1mb. GTK+OSX has an active mailing list.

* Further Information

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net

Robin Rowe, GTK+OSX project manager, 510-235-2397, Robin.Rowe@MovieEditor.com

Full rez screenshots: http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/docs/applications.h tml

Re:Article text (AC not whore)

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the post.

After your done slashdotting why not check out my stupid little website at Pajonet.com!

First impertinent post

[Frothy Walrus]

But, why would anyone use GTK when OS X provides the vastly better Aqua?

Re:First impertinent post

[kyrre]

Its easier to compile The Gimp for OS X/GTK than to create a separate tree for an Aqua version of The Gimp. This goes for a horde of other gtk applications as well. Now if only they would make a Gnome library for Aqua I could use Gnome applets in my dock. This is good stuff. Im looking forward to throwing out Photoshop in favour of The Gimp.

Re:First impertinent post

[popeyethesailor]

GTK is a widget toolkit, it can be targeted to any rendering engine, X-windows, GDI etc.
BTW, this article is about GTK running natively on OS-X, which means it utilises the Aqua rendering engine. So there.

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

Aqua is just a look. Quartz is the rendering engine.

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

*vastly better*

beautiful young imprssionable minds !!

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be able to help. I'd like a definite answer but when I ask this question I get either "I don't know" (which is fair) or "piss off photoshop troll" which is just pointless.

Does Gimp have a pref option to give it precise-cursors like photoshop has? as in... not just a crosshair for a tool, but if I'm drawing in a 10-pixel-round brush I'd love to see a 10-pixel-round outline to give me the precise location of where I'm about to draw.

thanks

Re:First impertinent post

[Nodatadj]

Doesn't seem to.

Re:First impertinent post

[llamalicious]

Im looking forward to throwing out Photoshop in favour of The Gimp.

That's enough outta you, mister. Your black turtleneck and beret are being confiscated!

Pffft.

Re:First impertinent post

[IamTheRealMike]

But, why would anyone use GTK when OS X provides the vastly better Aqua?

Because GTK lets you write apps for Linux, Windows and now MacOS X, whereas Aqua is OS X only?

Also, how are you comparing GTK to Aqua? Looks? Have you got extensive programming experience of both? Or are you just assuming it's worse?

I think you could make a good case that GTK is superior to Aqua (as a widget toolkit).

GTK2 is much better than GTK1 bear in mind (I think they ported gtk1). I personally think the most common theme engines look much better than Aqua, because the flat, clean look appeals to me. Seeing screenshots of Aqua apps makes me glad I'm not using it, I mean every effing widget is full of stripey lines: I find it incredibly visually distracting. Of course GTK is natively themable (Aqua is not without some horrid hacks) and has been for some time, so if you must have an Aqua style GUI you can have one, but I much prefer for instance Mist which is stylish without getting in your way.

Programming wise, although I don't know much about MacOS coding, I do know that GTK2 has more bindings than Aqua (it's based on object oriented C meaning it's incredibly easy to bind to other languages), can have multiple backends (which is where it gets its display portability from), with the X backend can be network transparent, uses FreeType for superior text antialiasing (OS X has heavier, fuzzier AA at small sizes), has full accessibility support (aqua may have this too, i dunno) and of course is open source (which is why this is possible in the first place).

So - if you have credible arguments for why Aqua is better as a toolkit than GTK, let's hear them. And no, "I like animated buttons" is not a credible argument, you can have them with GTK too if you write a theme that uses them.

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

Im looking forward to throwing out Photoshop in favour of The Gimp.

Nice troll!

Re:First impertinent post

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Compare helloworld.c from HelloGTK (with the comments stripped out for brevity's sake and massaged to appease the stupid lameness filter [which should ignore stuff inside ecode tags, dammit]) to the equivalent Controller.m from Hello.app, which I wrote in Objective C using the Cocoa API with Project Builder and Interface Builder in about two minutes.

helloworld.c

#include "HelloGTK_Prefix.h"

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

void hello( GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data )
{
g_print ("Hello World\n");
}

gint delete_event( GtkWidget *widget, GdkEvent *event, gpointer data )
{
g_print ("delete event occurred\n");
return(TRUE);
}

void destroy( GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data )
{
gtk_main_quit();
}

int main( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
GtkWidget *window;
GtkWidget *button;

gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (window), "delete_event", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (delete_event), NULL);

gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (window), "destroy", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (destroy), NULL);

gtk_container_set_border_width (GTK_CONTAINER (window), 10);

button = gtk_button_new_with_label ("Hello World");

gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (button), "clicked", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (hello), NULL);

gtk_signal_connect_object (GTK_OBJECT (button), "clicked", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (gtk_widget_destroy), GTK_OBJECT (window));

gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), button);

gtk_widget_show (button);

gtk_widget_show (window);

gtk_main ();

return(0);
}

Controller.m

#import "Controller.h"

@implementation Controller

- (IBAction)doHelloButtonAction:(id)sender {
[NSApp terminate:HelloButton];
}

@end

Which API would you rather use?

Re:First impertinent post

[greygent]

In the future, I'll have to remember to reiterate the Slashdot story in a couple sentences, so I can get modded +5.

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Gimp doesn't have that feature, which annoyed me no end at first. But now it doesn't bother me any more.

Why? Because I found out that Gimp doesn't even support CMYK! The question of whether it can draw precise cursors seems pretty trivial when you discover that the program can't even handle your color space.

Gimp went bye-bye at that point, and I've been happily using Photoshop 7 for everything ever since.

Re:First impertinent post

[IamTheRealMike]

Ahhh, well that's sort of cheating. A better example would be using a high level language. That doesn't use Glade (UIs loaded externally). I've written a hello world GTK app in Python that is only 4 lines of code using glade, one of which is loading the file.

If you're going to compare APIs you should at least make use of the features of each, and use languages of similar levels. No, ObjC is not a low level language either.

GTK UI construction in C is verbose yeah, but so is anything in C. You can make GTK apps very simply if you use the right bindings and use Glade (equivalent to .nib files), ditto for any part of the GNOME apis. Oh and I'd much rather not use Objective-C for anything, I find it incredibly hard to read, and I know many languages. I'm sure I could learn it if I wanted to, but I don't, language neutral APIs are generally much nicer imho.

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimp is OK, but c'mon! Are you really gonna toss a copy of Photoshop you already own just to use Gimp?

Re:First impertinent post

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Oh and I'd much rather not use Objective-C for anything, I find it incredibly hard to read...

Like Python is easy on the eyes? My kingdom for a damn semicolon! ;-)

Re:First impertinent post

[IamTheRealMike]

*chuckle* :) Well, I don't tend to use Python much, Ruby is starting to look good though. A cross between Python, Perl and Smalltalk with gnome2 bindings? Mmm, I think so. But I'll wait until it's more mature (and I actually need it) before playing with it. And with semicolons!

Re:First impertinent post

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick with Objective C. It compiles, so it requires no special run-time environment. It's trivial; there are about five extensions to standard C to learn. Because it's just C with some extras, I can use any C-language code or library with no extra effort. And it's just as easy (easier, even!) to write first-class Aqua UI applications as it would be with Python or Ruby or whatever else.

Re:First impertinent post

[bnenning]

Oh and I'd much rather not use Objective-C for anything, I find it incredibly hard to read, and I know many languages.

That's exactly what I thought, until I started using it. The method syntax actually makes it more readable than most other languages. (Ugh, tried to paste examples but the lameness filter doesn't like it).

language neutral APIs are generally much nicer imho

You can write Cocoa apps in many languages, including Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, and Lisp.

Re:First impertinent post

[andrewski]

The crazy thing is that damn near EVERYTHING is this easy in Cocoa. I haven't actually been really excited by a development environment since LegoLogo, but this is even cooler.

Re:First impertinent post

[Mr. Frilly]

uh, no. The equivalent to your objective C hello world app would be:

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int main( int argc, char *argv[] ){
GtkWidget *window, *button;

gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
button = gtk_button_new_with_label ("Hello World");
gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), button);

gtk_widget_show_all (window);
gtk_main ();

return(0);
}

Re:First impertinent post

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I'm no GTK expert, but to me it looks like you left out the part where clicking the button causes the program to exit. If I'm reading your program right, all you did was draw a window with a button in it; the button itself doesn't seem to do anything.

Right?

Re:First impertinent post

[eggnet]

No, ObjC is not a low level language either.

It compiles directly to machine code and requires no interpreter environment to run. That's about as low as it gets.

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

doesn't matter.. clicking the titlebar will exit the program, gtk2 has default handlers for stuff not given a handling function

Re:First impertinent post

[mcrbids]

GTK for OSX allows you to write CROSS PLATFORM software - write once in GTK, run on Windows, Numerous 'nixes, including Linux, and now, OSX.

That is, unless Apple has released Aqua for Windows/Linux/Unix?

I look forward to this, since I'm now committed to using PHP-GTK for a number of smallish applications, and loving it, but the missing piece right now is Mac...

-Ben

Re:First impertinent post

[bnenning]

That is, unless Apple has released Aqua for Windows/Linux/Unix?

Not by Apple, but GNUstep is coming along nicely.

Re:First impertinent post

[Elladan]

You can compile Java directly to machine code which runs without an interpreter too. Compiled vs. Interpreted is not the same as how high level the language is.

And actually, it doesn't compile "directly" to machine code. It's compiled into some sort of compiler-specific intermediate form where it gets optimized, and then output as machine-specific assembly. The assembler is the tool which creates machine code.

It's quite possible to compile almost any interpreted language to a machine executable, if you really want to. Some may be quite inefficient, of course. It's also possible to run any language in an interpreter.

The distinction between a high level and a low level language is very fuzzy, and roughly refers to the level of abstraction it provides for abstract data types, objects, memory management, etc.

C is a "mid-level" language, because it doesn't provide native support for objects, lists, trees, garbage collection, etc. However, it can certainly support all of these with the proper libraries (except garbage collection, which is more difficult - you need some compiler support too generally, but it's possible).

Java, on the other hand, is considered somewhat higher-level, because it provides native object and garbage collection support, and standard library support for many data types. It also attempts to place stronger guarantees on the consistency of the runtime state.

Other languages, such as python or perl, might be considered higher level still, with intrinsic list and associative array support, etc. So could lisp.

But then, the whole high/low level thing is extremely fuzzy. For instance, lisp supports garbage collection, arrays, etc., as well as closures, lambda functions, runtime code generation, etc., all very high level. But it doesn't natively support objects. So, an OOP person might laugh at it with disdain, especially since it's basically the oldest language still in use.

C++ also supports a medly of "high level" features (some relatively unique), but lacks garbage collection and the sort of strong internal consistency guarantees interpreted languages provide, so some people scoff at its high-level-ness as well. And of course, you can fiddle with memory locations directly if you want and play with inline assembly as well.

In terms of this sort of discussion, the relevant comparison was about the wordiness of the respective languages. But of course, this is also a completely deceptive comparison, since you have to ensure they're doing precisely the same thing. If you select a task where one of them comes with a library that does exactly that, and the other one doesn't, you can easily make any language look far more concise than any other.

For instance, say I make a language, asm-foo, which is assembly except, I include the function, foo, which takes no arguments. foo will automatically run a GUI based office suite on the current display which allows the user to perform a number of tasks. :-)

Here is my office suite software, in hand-optimized intel x86 asm-foo assembly code:

.text
.globl main
main:
call foo
ret
.end main

Please show me another language besides asm-foo where I can write an office suite more easily. :-)

Oops, bourne shell script?

#!/bin/sh
exec openoffice

Doh!

Re:First impertinent post

[Anonymous Coward]

> Im looking forward to throwing out Photoshop in favour of The Gimp.

This only means you're not a professional graphical artist, otherwise you wouldn't say this. Gimp is ok, but you can't seriously prefer it over Photoshop, except pricewise.

And since you already seem to have Photoshop, why throw it away for the Gimp? It's like trading in a Lexus for a Volkswagen Golf (a very nice car on it's own but not a Lexus). Or maybe, and that's the only reason I can imagine, you have a pirated version of Photoshop you wan tto get rid of...

Re:First impertinent post

[cyberdog6]

another reason for throwing out photoshop in favor of the Gimp would be that he has a copy he purchased, but is not looking forward to paying for upgrade after upgrade.

also, he said he is looking forward to the day when photoshop will replace the Gimp allowing him to do the above. he didn't say he was planning on throwing it away now.

i also look forward to the day when i can afford to get the latest and greatest apps because they will be open source and as good as the apps they replace.

also, if you are not a pro graphic artist, Gimp would do just fine, and is currently a good replacement for Paint Shop Pro and other lesser apps.

Re:First impertinent post

[nutznboltz]

Unlike the GTK-Quartz attempt, GTK+OSX is Carbon-based and does not use Objective C.

source:

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/index.html

Good news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for people like myself who are looking for cross-platform ways of developing apps (particularly front-ends for network apps). Now it seems all 3 major platforms are covered. hurrah!

Re:Good news...

[KAMiKAZOW]

IMHO wxWindows is a better solution for cross-platform GUI apps. wxWindows supports MacOS (9 and X), Windows and various Unices. The nice thing is, that wxWindows uses the native widgets (GTK in Unix/Linux) for the rendering.

Re:Good news...

[EvilMal]

I didn't like wxWindows because I believe it says you have to create a new Makefile for every different OS that you wish to support. I am still looking for a GUI library that will let me write the software once, and compile it on many different platforms.

GTK looks very good for this, but I seem to have issues with it and cygwin. This is probably just my fault, and I'm doing something wrong, so I continue to learn to develop programs with it anyways.

Re:Good news...

[cbv]

..for people like myself who are looking for cross-platform ways of developing apps [...]

... GNUstep would be THE way to go.

Cool - finally XChat!

[motorsabbath]

Cool - Finally XChat, maybe, I'll hafta try it. And yes, I installed X, and yes, I'd still prefer a native version.

Re:Cool - finally XChat!

[HLR]

FYI... There is an aqua port:
http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net/

Re:Cool - finally XChat!

[motorsabbath]

WOW! Thanks for the pointer. Works quite well!

JB

My only wish...

[mschoolbus]

is to see the headline "X86+OSX"...

Re:My only wish...

[axxackall]

why not X86+Linux? That will give you much more complete X11 based desktop environment and application set.

Today you can use one of several stable Linux/PPC distros: Gentoo, Debian, Mandrake, YDL, Slackware.

Personally I prefer Gentoo by three main reasons:

• Gentoo is the fastest Linux on PPC and it beats all others (on PPC) including Mac OS X;
• Gentoo has the best (among other Linux distros AND other OSes) package management tool: Portage;
• Gentoo has the best ratio between stable and bleeding-edge packages;
• Gentoo has the best (among all other distros and OSes) support on famous Gentoo forums;

And in case of Mac OS nostalgy, keep the dual boot or use MOL (Mac-on-Linux). I use both ways: I scan hard-printed papers and photos after rebooting to Mac OS (I use 9.2 - I hate OS X by same reasons as people hate Microsoft Windows) and I use MOL when I need Macos binaries (some games) to run (when it doesn't require direct access to USB).

Re:My only wish...

[damiam]

Here you go.

Re:My only wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't afford a thousand dollars to buy a decent ibook or low-end imac? I mean come on, if I wanted to, I could save up for three months and buy an Apple computer.

Re:My only wish...

[tyagiUK]

Having Apple port OSX to x86 would be nice, but where would it really get us? I admit that it would be great to have strong competition in the desktop OS market (yes, Linux is good on the desktop, but not quite as good as OSX/Windows), but most of the office applications are still MS-sourced anyway.

I am in this dilemma myself. Do I carry on upgrading my x86 "investment" (there's a joke) or bite the bullet, stop upgrading and start saving for an Apple box?

I'm personally past caring too much about upgrading and tuning my hardware. My time is too limited these days. I just need a box that does what I need, has the apps that I need to run and the flexibility to grow with me. If this means upgrading the entire box every few years I'm prepared to do that. However, it would be nice to be able to stick in a new GFX card, more memory or whatever.

Getting OSX on x86 would just give us the same nightmares as with MS Windows. A plethora of hardware to support, leading to an unstable and bloated OS. OK, so I gather that OSX isn't that skinny, but I've used it and it seems a heck of a lot snappier than any MS offering.

OSX on x86 would slow down and complicate Apple's development effort to the extent that they would stop becoming innovative and spend all their time chasing their tails.

Re:My only wish...

[mbbac]

Quit being cheap and buy a Mac! It's cheaper than a Sun box.

Re:My only wish...

[sporty]

Gentoo is the fastest Linux on PPC and it beats all others (on PPC) including Mac OS X;

And Mac OS X gets Gentoo in a sleeper hold! But Gentoo breaks it. Oh, kick to the midsection.

C'mmon.. can we please stop making absolute statements? Especially with no foundation?

Re:My only wish...

[axxackall]

You don't know Gentoo, do you? The main thing what makes Gentoo very different from other distros and OSes is installation form the source code. And when I say "installation" I mean installation of everything. Every single package is compiled from the source code with compilation flags the most optimal for that particular hardware (CPU and motherboard).

All other OSes keep one universal binary distribution compiled for the most conservative CPU/chipset. As a result the performance on the fastest compter is not that fast. Otherwise, there is a risk of application crashing (another common problem on Mac OS X). The bad news about proprietary Mac OS X - nothing you can do with it. You cannot recompile your kernel, you drivers, you GUI.

Of course, you can install whole Gentoo or just some packages from pre-compiled binaries, available from distro or pre-compiled by yourself. Such option is especially useful when you have more than one identical computers, so you compile each package only once.

There is a foundation of performance comparison of Gentoo and Mac OS X. Read Gentoo forums. Or, even better, try yourself to see the real difference.

Re:My only wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your check is in the mail. Great job. Keep up the good work.

-Mark Guertin (gerk@gentoo.org)

Re:My only wish...

[sporty]

You don't know Gentoo, do you?

Yup, I have. But I think you may have missed the jest in my post. Nothing (most of the time) is completely better than something else. It's better at certain things, that have certain values.

Now for the irrelevant part of my reply to your post. My point is that Gentoo and Mac OSX are better than each other at different things.

All other OSes keep one universal binary distribution compiled for the most conservative CPU/chipset. As a result the performance on the fastest compter is not that fast.

Not bad for mac's, since the ppc hasn't been changed since the older non-ppc chilsets. So binaries aren't the end of the world for the Mac.. since we know the hardware it'll be run on. :)

Otherwise, there is a risk of application crashing (another common problem on Mac OS X).

Uh, that's a result not of OS X. It can be the OS, the compiler or a bug in the app. I can easily write apps that'll crash on linux but be fine on OSX. It's just buggy code that I've written. If the OS is sturdy, the compiler is sturdy and the app is sturdy, the app won't necessarily crash. I haven't had an OS crash more than once.

The bad news about proprietary Mac OS X - nothing you can do with it. You cannot recompile your kernel, you drivers, you GUI.

Darwin, the underlying OS, you can recompile. Quartz, Cocoa and the other libs are gifts, in binary form, from Apple. So I can use X11 on top of it. I rather not.

There is a foundation of performance comparison of Gentoo and Mac OS X. Read Gentoo forums. Or, even better, try yourself to see the real difference.

It may run hello world faster, but it doesn't have iTunes, iMovie, iDvd, Aqua, Office (MS's MacOffice, not Windows one). But if I wanted a server, or a unix workstation, I may consider linux. I've tried Mandrake, Slackware, Gentoo, RedHat and Debian. They were nice for various things. I liked FreeBSD for some things, OBsed for others.

I just rather Mac OS X. I like the gui, the feel... before it, I was a windowmaker user for 3 years. I tried kde a few times. I never liked gnome much.

So in other words, lemme use what I like. I've tried the rest, and I'm stuck with what's best for me.

Re:My only wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can, and have recompiled my OSX kernel to get a little ThermoInDock app to work on my machine. I forget the app's URL's, it was about a year ago under OSX 10.0.4. Not sure if they have suddenly removed the ability to tinker with the kernel in the latest versions though.

Re:My only wish...

[viperblades]

you forgot about LFS.......... and try getting 5 hour battery life on an x86 lappy with only one battery

Re:My only wish...

[axxackall]

and try getting 5 hour battery life on an x86 lappy with only one battery

What does bring x86 here? We are talking about Gentoo Linux on Mac PPC. Is it your automatical reaction to think "x86" when you hear "linux"? If so - then fix it: Linux works on a number platforms, besides x86. PPC, Alpha and Sparc are examples.

By the way, Gentoo with PPC extensions (pmud etc) is not really different from Mac OS in terms of battery consumtion.

Re:My only wish...

[axxackall]

It may run hello world faster, but it doesn't have iTunes, iMovie, iDvd, Aqua, Office (MS's MacOffice, not Windows one).

Just few corrections:

Linux PPC runs OpenOffice. But if you insist on MS Mac Office - it runs it fine in MOL with same speed and quaity. Personally I prefer OpenOffice.

Instead of Aqua it has X86 with Gnome, which I like better than Aqua/Quartz.

I play DVD, movies and music on Linux. I've tried iThings on Mac OS X and found them cheesy - they are not THAT special as they pretend to be.

Re:My only wish...

[sporty]

Linux PPC runs OpenOffice. But if you insist on MS Mac Office - it runs it fine in MOL with same speed and quaity. Personally I prefer OpenOffice.

So? Point is, you prefer it. I don't. End of story. Mac OS and Linux are good since they fufill our needs respectively. You know why I like Mac OSX, I know why you like Linux. One isn't better than the other except in our own preferences.

Looking good?

[Anonymous Coward]

No way...it looks terrible just like all GTK apps. Putting GTK on Aqua is like putting Janet Reno in Playboy.

Re:Looking good?

[mschoolbus]

Well maybe some of us would like to see Janet Reno in Playboy... Just like some of us would like to run GTK apps on Aqua...

Its all about choices isn't it? But I do believe the Janet Reno choice is morally wrong.

Re:Looking good?

[IndoorCat]

I do believe the Janet Reno choice is morally wrong.

I agree. Give me Madeline Albright any day.

This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[mustangdavis]

This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads

I don't think so!

Although it is pricey, all the "MacHeads" still are trained on (and prefer) Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately, that is still a superior product when it comes to image manipulation. Yes, GIMP has come quite a ways (and I use it for personal stuff since Adobe P.S. is so pricey), but it is hard to compete with a product that does such a great job and that has become an industry standard.

Nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen! Too many graphi designers have spent too many years of their lives learning how to use all of the features of Photoshop .... they're not goning to convert just because GIMP is suddenl available for OSX. If they wanted GIMP, they would have installed Linux on their Mac years ago and used it then.

Although I think it is great that GTK is now on Mac, I don't think it will change "things" that much ...

Just my $0.02 cents

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[pyite]

The funny thing is that everything I ever try to do in Photoshop feels counter-intuitive. Why? Because I learned on the GIMP. It takes me forever to figure out things in Photoshop, whereas in the GIMP, I can get by pretty quickly.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[kyrre]

I do prefer The Gimp. Its interface, its free plugins, and the nice support for Python scripts. As for the interface its probably because I started out with The Gimp. For others that startet out with Photoshop it is the other way around. The Gimp functions more than satisfy my hobbyist needs. For professional use, outside web development, Photoshop should be better. But I'm more like a programmer.

And The Gimp is free as in (GNU) speech.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[BMonger]

I'm not a graphic design type but I do need a program to use when I am creating web sites... there's not a chance I'm gonna spend $600 or so on PhotoShop when all I have to do is resize and image and maybe a crop or two...

Right now I use Graphic Convertor because it's cheap ($20) and it's easy to use... but I'd be inclined to install GIMP and use it too if it stopped by OS X...

A lot of power users probably use Final Cut Pro/DVD Studio Pro too but I bet there is a much much larger market that uses iMovie and iDVD because it's easy and it does what "the common man" needs done... this is the same place where GIMP will prevail.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[veddermatic]

I learned to get across the room by breaking glass on the floor then stripping naked and wrigginlg across it while squeezing lemon juice on my body.

Every time I try to use my "legs" it seems akward.

If you like the GIMP, neat, it's dirt cheap, and it does some stuff that PS does.. but boy howdy, comparing GIP to Photoshop is, well, re-read that first part of my post. I'm a professional designer... I looked into the GIMP when I was going ot leave WInderz for Linux.... I gave it plenty of time and effort, but sorry, the GIMP UI was designed by an evil robot who's only job it was to make a horrible UI. =)

I left Windows tho... Mmm, photoshop on OS X.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[FaRuvius]

The funny thing is that your kind is outnumbered 100 to 1. 99% of the graphics population find would find GIMP counter-intuitive.
-

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

For what it's worth, I started on the gimp, and enjoyed it immensely - it was my introduction to graphics in a purely manual sense (as opposed to rendered 3D imagery and the like). I'm glad I came across it when I did. I never saw much reason to bash photoshop at the time, but other linux graphics users seem to have an obsession with bringing down all things PS.

I used photoshop after nearly 2 years with the gimp, and while it was initially freaky without my familiar tools I was stunned at the power in PS. It feels simpler, looks simpler, hell I feel like I'm doing less 'work' but there's more of me going into an image, than into using the UI. You can count me among the pro-photoshop people, but on the other hand I'll never bash The Gimp for what it is. It does well for when you don't need all of PS, and I can't see everyone needing to do everything PS does. It's one of the few pieces of software worth the price, IMHO

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[pyite]

Wait one cotton picking second there. I really find that being able to do everything with a right click in the GIMP is way better than Photoshop's menus. I find the GIMP's UI to be much nicer than Photoshops.

Now, it's time to turn the TV off. *Takes out shotgun and starts shooting at the power button.* At least I don't crawl on breaking glass ;)

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

"And The Gimp is free as in (GNU) speech"

Sorry, that is no longer a consideration on this post-Open-Source website formerly known as Slashdot.

Fucking sellouts running this site.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

Please address me properly. That should be Herr Poindexter. Thank you.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[josephgrossberg]

Also, how suitable is the Gimp to a single mouse button?

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[jlo]

"but I'd be inclined to install GIMP and use it too if it stopped by OS X..."

GIMP has already stopped by OS X. Although it runs in X11. You should use Fink to install GIMP, and other excellent Unix world apps. As a Graphic Converter user, you might be intrested to try Image Magic.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[baryon351]

All the current macheads (if most of my experience with fellow graphic artists is anything to go by) will look at the gimp and go "wtf?". Some will head towards it because it's free, but the biggest benefit will be to future macheads, switchers, and people who haven't yet thrown themselves into graphics. While I prefer photoshop (alright, it's the main reason I use a computer at all), it's all about choice.

One more tool, with its place.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[veddermatic]

heh, point take, but a GOOD UI only needs one mouse button (no, I'm not sucking Jobs' wee-wee, honest!!)

One hand hovering over the keyboard to hit one-key sortcuts for 99% of tool selection / macros, etc, and the mouse ONLY to draw / select / paint.

I mostly run PS with ALL toolbars except the color swatches and mixer windows not there... the mouse is very secondary to a trained / practiced user... right-clicking and having to move away fomr what I was jsut drawing / selecting / etc to click (and if I remember my GIMP, then clicking again, and moving further away to select another menu option) is wasteful!

Context menus are good, if done well.... I again stand by the fact that the evil UI robot was heavily involved... =)

Photoshop == UI designed by artists / UI designers for artists / UI desigers using an app who's goal is to create Art / UI elements

GIMP == UI designed by a (very good) programmer who's main goal was offering feature comperability to PS... "they got layers, WE got layers.. oh, I guess I better make a way to access them.. uh, well, I wrote right-click menu code, I'll jsut throw it on there." While "it works", it's (IMNSHO) a far cry from usable

But again, if you like the GIMP, and it does what you want, hells yeah... it's nice to have a choice!!

Besides, after M$ buys Macromedia and takes Flash away from me, I'm sue they will buy Adobe and take Photoshop away... and I'll be begging you for GIMP tips =)

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[diamondc]

It's not.. that's why you go out and buy a three button mouse.

Or you can use one of the function keys on an iBook for your 2nd and 3rd mouse button.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

I learned to get across the room by breaking glass on the floor then stripping naked and wrigginlg across it while squeezing lemon juice on my body.

Ya know, hot coffee through the nose is not a good way to start your day. Too f---ing funny pal!

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[josephgrossberg]

How many Mac users bother to purchase the 3-button?

That's not sarcasm; I'm curious.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[BMonger]

Exactly. It runs under X11. I'm way too lazy to attempt to get X11 to run over/under/next to/whatever or however it runs with/without OS X. Graphic Convertor runs just fine under OS X. But... if GIMP ran directly under OS X (download/run and nothing else) I'd be inclined to give it a shot. I'm not that hardcore into the "I gotta use open source" or whatever makes GIMP so cool that I'm gonna mess around with installing 8 other doo dads to get it working.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[JHromadka]

I'm not a graphic design type but I do need a program to use when I am creating web sites... there's not a chance I'm gonna spend $600 or so on PhotoShop when all I have to do is resize and image and maybe a crop or two...

Heck if that's all you're doing, you can just use the free iPhoto application and save your $20 for Graphic Converter. I recently found iPhoto's red eye feature and it works really well.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I gave it plenty of time and effort, but sorry, the GIMP UI was designed by an evil robot who's only job it was to make a horrible UI. =)

Unfortunatly, I have to second this. I'm no artist (and being color-blind doesn't help... that's what the picker is for...), but I know how to use the app (Photoshop) quite well. I've tried to do the same thing in Gimp that I can do in Photoshop in seconds, but alas; the Gimp needs a LOT of work in the UI department.

Sure, yes, The Gimp is just as powerful as Photoshop, there's no arguement there, but the UI is nasty. Just nasty.

Part of it may be that I'm not the biggest fan of GTK (I'm a KDE user), but just in general I mean this. I like the Gimp and I am really trying to learn it (since I don't have a Win* box worth more than a few bucks around anymore). But damn. I just find it really hard to work with.

Sure, that could be because I've been using Photoshop since like the 3 versions, but I'm used to learning curves. This one, I'm finding, to be quite steep.

Maybe it's just me.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[babbage]

On one level you're right -- Photoshop is in most ways & by most opinions a superior tool compared to the Gimp, and most oldschool Mac users will not be impressed by the Gimp. On the other hand, a lot of newschool Mac users are oldschool Unix users, and a lot of those folks are only passingly interested in creative graphics software. For that segment, noodling around in the Gimp is just fine, and makes far more sense than shelling out a few hundred bucks for the professional grade graphic designers' software. In short, the Mac ecosystem is diverse enough to support both applications just fine.

More importantly, the real gain here is the GTK+ toolkit, not just the most prominent application written with that toolkit. Being one of those unix/mac users, I'm not particularly interested in the Gimp -- but I'd love to be able to use an Aqua-native version of Gvim every day, and with a native GTK+ port there are now a huge number of other GTK+ apps that can be brought over to OSX without forcing users to set up X11 as well. As another commenter noted, no, these will not really have the right look & feel for OSX -- menus attached to windows instead of the screen border is a mistake here -- but as a bridge framework for bringing graphical Unix software to the Mac, this is far better than having to run X11 alongside Aqua.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[IronyChef]

How many Mac users bother to purchase the 3-button?

Three out of four known to me.

Besides, the hockey-puck mice that were standard for a couple years begged to be replaced irrespective of their number of buttons; they were one of Apple's rare mistakes of form defeating function.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[reallocate]

Well, me for one. Because I'd been using a 3-button mouse for years before moving to OS X. By the same token, if I'd moved to traditional Unix and X after years on a Mac, I would have bemoaned the need to use a 3-button mouse.

Using a 1-button mouse in an app designed for it, i.e., per Apple standards, presents no problem. I found that no functionality -- none, zip, nada -- was lost, though, with a 1-button mouse on non-Apple apps.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, yes, The Gimp is just as powerful as Photoshop, there's no arguement there

+5 funny!

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, yes, The Gimp is just as powerful as Photoshop, there's no arguement there

There's plenty of argument there. Try using Gimp for CMYK work. (tick... tick... tick...) What do you mean, it doesn't do CMYK? Everybody on Slashdot says it's just as powerful as Photoshop! WTF?!

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Twirlip of the Mists]

How many Mac users bother to purchase the 3-button?

As many as want to. I use a three-button mouse sometimes (Maya), and a one-button mouse the rest of the time. My friend uses a one-button mouse all the time. My girlfriend uses a three-button mouse, but only because she likes the way it feels better than the Apple mouse; she doesn't actually use the third button.

It's all about choices, man. I love not having to use the right mouse button for anything.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[IamTheRealMike]

The funny thing is that your kind is outnumbered 100 to 1. 99% of the graphics population find would find GIMP counter-intuitive.

Yes, but the GIMP isn't just used by the Photoshop using graphics population.

The vast majority of computer users will, at some point, probably need to do something with images. Whether it's just convert between different formats, resize them, retouch a photo, eliminate the background of an image, whatever, the GIMP can do all those things. I find the GIMP easier to work with than Photoshop, it's just familiarity. I certainly am not spending all that money on PS, I'm not a graphics pro, I don't need to work in exotic colourspaces, I, like 99% of the world, just need something that'll work well for me.

So, that's who can benefit from the gimp. Beating Photoshop seems to be an implied goal of the GIMP, but it isn't really. We all use it at work for instance, because our graphics work is limited to web design and stuff for presentations, we're not professional artists. The Gimp is great for that stuff.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[jandrese]

Hold on a second. My parents recently got a new Mac and I had the chance to try out iPhoto. While it is a nice application (somewhat limited in what it can do) the Redeye was a HUGE disappointment for me. Basically, it just completely remove the red in whatever area you have selected. All previously "red" eyes turn black. There's no slider to adjust how much red you want removed, it just removes all of it. The effect was rather disconcerting when I changed red eyes into big black craters. As it is, I left the redeye in because it just looked less freaky than what iPhoto did.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I'm way too lazy to attempt to get X11 to run over/under/next to/whatever or however it runs with/without OS X.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike running X11 on my Mac as much as the next guy. But... too lazy? Too lazy to download and double-click one installer? (Warning: direct link to the XDarwin installer StuffIt archive!)

You can even run a more user-friendly window manager for the price of one additional download. I know that we're getting into multiple steps here, so the "lazy" think kicks in again, but if you ever absolutely have to run X11, this is about the easiest way to do it.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the macs in our laboratory have 3 buttons/scrollwheels. All three of my own machines do. I should mention that I've been using macs since the beginning (one of the first 10,000 128 k's replaced our IIe). It's true that a 1-button mouse can do everything that a three-button one can but if you're trying to flip thru a manual or a notebook it's MUCH better to be able to do the same thing one-handed. But much more important than the extra buttons is the scroll wheel.

Apple has gone half the distance already: contextual menus are fully supported with Logitech, Kensington, MS, etc. 3-buttin mice. Now Apple needes to start shipping a 3-button unit with scrollwheel as standard. Not that I'm holding my breath or anything.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

GIMP is too complicated and counter-intuitive though. If it was for my family I'd recommend Photodeluxe or even Photoshop Elements. If it was me I'd just crack out my copy of Photoshop 7 for the PC (courtesy of Kazaa.. wink wink.)

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[g4dget]

I agree that many MacHeads prefer Photoshop because they know it. I also agree that it has many more features. In fact, Photoshop has really become a mix of graphic design, web design, and image manipulation tools.

But that merely makes it different from the Gimp, not necessarily superior to it. For the specific purpose of digital photography and image manipulation, the Gimp is excellent, and its user interface works very well.

In any case, I do agree that there isn't much point in porting the Gimp to OSX. People buy Macs because they want to run commercial software and because they want a certain "look". Anybody who wants to run the Gimp would get a much faster machine and a much more consistent GUI for less money by running it on a PC running Linux.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[babbage]

...and to be honest, I should have mentioned that there is already an Aqua port of Vim (currently version 6.1.184, runs on all versions of OSX). So just to head off the person that will inevitably point that out that Vim has been ported to a more or less Aqua-native form (menus on the screen border, not on the windows, etc), I realize that wasn't such a great example -- I just couldn't think of a better one at the time :-)

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[CoolVibe]

One hand hovering over the keyboard to hit one-key sortcuts for 99% of tool selection / macros, etc, and the mouse ONLY to draw / select / paint.

You use a MOUSE to draw? Gack... All graphicians I know use those snazzy wacom tablets. The pens have multiple buttons. Your point is moot.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[UberLame]

However, new people might learn the gimp that would have otherwise just pirated Photoshop.

Also, FilmGimp does things well that photoshop does badly, like handling video and 16bit images. Sure, photoshop does 16bit, except that, to my understanding, a lot of features disappear, and not just from among the third party plugins.

Most dedicated Photoshop users probably won't switch soon, but maybe they find reasons to use Gimp anyway (the gimp seems like it is well on its way to being better for scripting, but I could be wrong), and there are many people who find photoshop to be the wrong tool.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[UberLame]

> A lot of power users probably use Final Cut Pro/DVD Studio Pro too but I bet there is a much much larger market that uses iMovie and iDVD because it's easy and it does what "the common man" needs done... this is the same place where GIMP will prevail.

I don't think that many people are going to find the GIMP much easier to learn than Photoshop. Nor should that be the GIMP team's goal. Their goal so far has been to make the best, most powerfull, image editor possible, not the easiest to use. And that is the only way I'd have it. Though, there are still areas I wish they would work of ease of use.

Adobe PhotoDelux would be a better equivelent of iMovie and iDVD, but I don't know of any free equivelent.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, come on. That's one answer, but the principle behind the lack of multiple buttons is still valid. Fundamentally, if your program has features that can only be accessed via a contextual menu then you're doing something wrong. Contextual menus are nice, but many users simply don't use them for the reason that there is no visible UI cue that "you can use a contextual menu here".

Now I do disagree with your assessment of GIMP's one-button-friendliness: modern versions of gimp have a little triangle in the upper-left-corner of the document windows that opens up the main menu. Not exactly intuitive, but it's usable from my trackpad.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[alfredo]

I find that the filters in GIMP are a little different than the Photoshop versions, and can be used to give a different feel to a project. To me GIMP is a utility. Still PS is the way to go.

A native port of GIMP will push development, as more Mac users try it.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[DGolden]

I yearn for an Amiga DPaint workalike. Maybe someday I'll get sufficiently bored to write one myself.

Photogenics is available on Linux, and has an excellent UI, but it doesn't do animation.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[patniemeyer]

I resisted the temptation to master Photoshop because I didn't want to invest that much of my life in somebody's proprietary product. When Gimp came along I took the time to learn every nook and cranny... Why? Because I know it will always be there and it will probably always be getting better.

Having gimp run native on the Mac is just one more reason I might consider a Mac.

Pat

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[jonadab]

> All graphicians I know use those snazzy wacom tablets.

I know one who swears by trackballs, but yeah, the one-button mice
that Apple ships are not so much for the graphics professionals as
for the other people who buy Macs. Apple knows it's pointless to
ship a better mouse with the Macs because the people who would know
how to use them are going to replace the mouse with something else
anyway.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[rawg]

Photoshop Elements is only $60 at Amazon and other stores right now. It's giving GIMP a run for its money. I prefer Elements to GIMP and the price is right.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[jonadab]

> As it is, I left the redeye in because it just looked less freaky
> than what iPhoto did.

Working with Gimp, the best thing I've found for redeye so far (note
that I'm neither a graphics professional nor a Gimp expert; I just
started using Gimp for stuff like converting between .bmp and .png
a few months ago, and learned more from there) is to use a selection
tool to grab just the irises, copy them to a new layer, then go
Filters->Colors->Map->Color Range Mapping

I'd be interested in hearing if other people have better techniques
for doing this. Also, if both eyes are completely red, what's the
best way to determine what target color range to use?

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[drunkenbatman]

Nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen! Too many graphi designers have spent too many years of their lives learning how to use all of the features of Photoshop .... they're not goning to convert just because GIMP is suddenl available for OSX. If they wanted GIMP, they would have installed Linux on their Mac years ago and used it then.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that adobe has really lost a lot of share in web graphics to macromedia (fireworks, etc) and others. It is untouchable as far as print graphics go, and that is where GIMP, TIFFany, etc all fall down. Adobe has honed its algorithms (and has patents on) for RGB>CMYK conversion, to the point where the barrier for entry for another competitor would just be too much.

But the completely blew it when it comes to RGB/web work. Completely. At one point photoshop probably had 80% of the market for web work, now i'd estimate that it is at ~35%, and most of the ones who use it for web use it as they also do print work (such as myself). Part of it has to do with them dropping the ball with a good web-app, and handling their purchase of golive so badly... dreamweaver ate their lunch, and fireworks integrates nicely with dreamweaver and flash and costs 1/3 of photoshop... so why buy photoshop?

So there is a lot of upside potential for something like gimp in the mac market, just not in print work.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Also, how suitable is the Gimp to a single mouse button?"

You're a ho for corporate America.
I won't even use a mouse unless it's open source.
Whatever I do what I want!

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Admiral Poindexter, young man. Carry on.

-Adm. Poindexter.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[larry bagina]

My girlfriend uses a three-button mouse, but only because she likes the way it feels better than the Apple mouse

Also, it reminds her of my dick.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[ocelotbob]

You can have one key shortcuts in the gimp, too. Got a few set up for my most commonly used filters. You just mouse over the filter you want a shortcut of, hit the key you want to bring that up, and bam! No need to right click.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[aardvarkjoe]

Short, fat, only has one ball?

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this is my exact opinion when using Illustrator. While Photoshop is a great program, Gimp is well within it's league. Even thought the GUI leave a little to be desired, there are aspects of it (detachable menues) that make some operations much more fluid in Gimp versus Photoshop.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[Anonymous Coward]

ive got a puck on my yosemite, and i just picked up another set of the mini keyboard and puck mouse to compliment my ibook on the road. i love the puck. it just slips right into your naturally curled up hand...perfect

and yes, it did take few days to get used to it...but thats all...

bg (forgot my login and an really lazy)

So when do we get GTKRadiant then??

[veddermatic]

SOMEONE PORT THE DAMN THING!!!

I'd do it myself, but I'm a loser arty-farty type =)

Re:So when do we get GTKRadiant then??

[TTimo]

We made some effort to get GtkRadiant ported to OSX using Gtk+/XDarwin. It has not been released yet, because hardware GL acceleration with Gtk+/XDarwin/GLX is still causing trouble.

The introduction of a native Gtk+ port is probably going to make us reconsider some options.

If you are interested, please see
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/mailman/listin fo/gt krad-macos

Re:So when do we get GTKRadiant then??

[veddermatic]

/me wipes spooge off monitor

Thanks!

Re:So when do we get GTKRadiant then??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Ved, why the hell aren't you on this list anyway? You dumb fagort!

And it is quite spoogalicious, yes!

love,

TM

(My God, I'd better post anonymously to protect my precious Karma! Remind me again what the hell it's good for?)

Re:So when do we get GTKRadiant then??

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, I'd better post anonymously to protect my precious Karma! Remind me again what the hell it's good for?

It can be redeemed for valuable prizes, such as a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni ("The San Francisco Treat!") or the home version of our game.

for linux bleh, for linux blah, for linux eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that a "s/linux/bsd/" would fit as well.

Hrm.

[Asterax]

Now maybe Psylsk will run correctly, and I wont have to bother with the developers release of SoleSeek.

Re:Hrm.

[Stu Charlton]

Pyslsk runs fine for me on OS X, but I complied it against XDarwin/GTK... which was a pain, but worked.

Probably a stupid question

[sheriff_p]

This is probably a stupid question, but:

There are programs like FreeCIV that use GTK. How long until I can natively compile FreeCIV, or some other arbitary *nix program on OS X, without needing an X server?

Re:Probably a stupid question

[robinsrowe]

GTK+OSX isn't completely finished yet (this is the first release), but we hope everyone will start building native Mac GTK+ apps with it today. Happy New Year, Robin

GTK + OSX - Yummm

[dbuttric]

I am an old Mac User, and I shrugged it off for the joy of the PC. But now I'm back and OSX tastes really good these days.

I can smell the deep fried pixels Now!

Yippy - Go team, Go!

Re:GTK + OSX - Yummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you smelllllllllllllllll what the Mac is cookin'!!!!

Re:GTK + OSX - Yummm

[mstyne]

Mac and cheese?

It doesn't matter what your name is!

What about existing Fink Installations?

[ewwhite]

How will this affect those of us with existing XFree86 and Fink applications? I currently use Gnome and Gtk for my X applications... is this an entirely-standalone product, or could it possibly integrate well with an existing Gtk install?

Re:What about existing Fink Installations?

[CoolVibe]

As long as you use the gtk-config type scripts (and maybe GNU autoconf) you should have nothing to worry about. Also, make sure you do it in pure GTK and no other Xlib dependant parts

Mod up parent

[popeyethesailor]

You're ofcourse correct Sir.

Excellent!

[I Am The Owl]

Any news yet on when GTK+ will decide to stop looking and acting like shit on Windows? I'd love to be able to use some GTK apps on Windows, but, well, they're ugly as hell and freeze a lot.

Re:Excellent!

[Ravagin]

That may just be you... are you running the latest GTK? I'm pretty sure I am, on Win2k, and aside from some minor behavioral quirks (hesitancy on mouseovers), I have no problems.

But yeah, I somehow think Windows GTK doesn't get quite as much priority as Linux. ;)

Re:Excellent!

[IamTheRealMike]

The latest release notes for the upcoming GTK2.2 release said a lot of work has been put into the Windows port, which is now apparently excellent. I haven't tried it though.

Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[lpontiac]

I've been looking into cross platform toolkits myself recently. A major issue where the Mac is concerned is that it's not just the look, it's the feel; there are lots of nuances that will annoy Mac users if you don't get them right.

The screenshot shows a menu bar at the top of the Othello window, which breaks the most obvious rule of all - Mac app windows don't have a menu bar on them, instead there's a single menu bar up the top which changes depending upon the focus.

There's some specific gotchas in the wxWindows wiki, here.

Don't get me wrong, the GTK port is an achievement and I'm sure it will be very useful to a lot of people. But we'll never get to the point where someone can produce a decent Mac app by taking their Unix sources and recompiling.

Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[fidget42]

Please remember that this is an alpha release. I would expect a production release to properly manage (most of) then Aqua UI guidelines.

Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[MeNeXT]

Agreed and it's the part of the Mac that bothers me the most. That menu bar is something I can never get used to.

Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[mbbac]

As a switcher for over a year now, I can say that I definitely prefer the global menubar. It is easy to target with a mouse and it keeps the windows less cluttered.

Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[Milo77]

I wouldn't assume that at all. The MSWindows port of GTK/GIMP still looks like the Linux/Unix version. From what I can tell, GTK will look the same no matter what platform you're on - this is awful from a UI perspective and will keep GTK from being used by serious UI designers. Use WxWindows, it's better in this regard.

Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[Anonymous Coward]

But we'll never get to the point where someone can produce a decent Mac app by taking their Unix sources and recompiling.

What if they code in GNUstep? wxWindows? AFAIK, Qt has an Aqua port...

Soon it's going to change...

[anarchima]

Yeah, so now you've got your widgets on all the platforms and developing apps will become easier. How long is that going to last, until someone decides to implement a superior technology? Then we'll all have to start over again...It's just annoying to think that this cycle will never actually end. The horrors of software development!

Re:Soon it's going to change...

[primus_sucks]

How long is that going to last, until someone decides to implement a superior technology

It's called Java:) Yea, I know Swing is slow (but improving), but it runs fine on my 800Mhz iMac, and runs awesome on my 2.4Mhz Linux machine. For cross platform, free (beer) GUI development I don't think you can beat it.

How long is that going to last, until someone decides to implement a superior technology

That's what keeps us programmers employed. It's a big conspiracy!

Re:rant

[Quazion]

I welcome this news, since maybe now i can create an easy port of freeciv for mac os x. Thanks Slashdot.

PyTK?

[supabeast!]

First, I want to give a big thanks to the developers who made this happen. Very cool stuff, and very useful.

Second, does anyone know if PyTK (The Python TK stuff.) is going to be ported? Imagine being able to toss together a Python/TK app together that could run on OS X without X! Very cool stuff!

Re:PyTK?

[Phroggy]

Apple already ported Tk, although I haven't been able to get it to work. And the OS ships with python. So, if you have better luck than I've had with Tk, you should have no problem.

Re:PyTK?

[Junta]

What about this?.

I know, not cross-platform, but the goodness of python in Cocoa...

As to the original story, I see the value as a porting mechanism of 'legacy' applications, but I fear that it will become a crutch for those who would otherwise provide a native Cocoa port. XDarwin already makes a lot of projects view a native Cocoa port as not absolutely necessary and not worth the effort. I would agree.... IF XDarwin was hardware accelerated, and worked perfectly consistantly in rootless mode, but neither is the case, even with OrborosX..

What about a GTK version that uses native widgets?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it is great that they have ported GTK to so many places, but there is one major problem in my opinion. GTK reimplements all of the native OS widgets. Thus, a GTK app running on Windows does not use the standard buttons defined in comctl32.dll, and a GTK app running on OS X does not use the cool Aqua buttons/tab views etc.

Thus, this "native" Aqua port just removes the dependency on X11. It doesn't use the native Aqua UI.

While UNIX users generally have no problem with UI inconsitencies caused by reinventing the widget sets between programs, Windows and especially Mac users generally do. Apps that don't use the standard widgets tend to stick out like a sore thumb. This is why people seem willing to spend time on things like Chimera.

Just take a look at that sample Othello game on that page. It does not look like a native OS X application.

This is not flamebait, but how hard would it be to have a GTK port that used the underlying buttons/scroll bars/tab views/everything else of the underlying OS? If they could do this, then GTK could become much more powerful.

sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-(

[BigSven]

The article doesn't mention much about the technical details and does not even tell us which version of GTK+ this port is based on. Unfortunately it seems to be a port of the older GTK+ version 1.2. This is a surprising at first glance since the 2.0 version of GTK+ is much better prepared for different rendering backends (and comes with GDK versions for Win32, linux-fb and DirectFB). Since this port is closely related to FilmGimp, which is unfortunately still dealing with the outdated 1.2 version, this choice becomes clear. Hopefully this project will soon lead to a GTK+-2.x port or Mac users will have to deal with outdated and mostly unmaintained GTK+ applications.

Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-(

[taviso]

s/old/stable/g
s/outdated/tried and tested/g
s/unmaintained/actively maintained and supported/g

Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-(

[eviltypeguy]

Pardon me, but GtkRadiant is a very actively maintained and stable Gtk+ 1.2 based application. It runs on Windows and Linux. Thanks.

Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-(

[X-ViRGE]

No, GTK+ 1.2 is no longer maintained and supported, the GTK team is only doing bugfixes on the 2.x versions.

Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-(

[Anonymous Coward]

just cause the gtk team dont support it dont mean its not supported. its included with suse, redhat, debian, etc - all of these people provide support for gtk 1.2.x .

Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-(

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the case of GTK:

s/old/fast/g

GTK 2.x is a super-slow suckfest, compared to GTK 1.x and every other toolkit.

Re:What about a GTK version that uses native widge

[IamTheRealMike]

I think that it is great that they have ported GTK to so many places, but there is one major problem in my opinion. GTK reimplements all of the native OS widgets

I think you missed something pretty important. GTK is the native OS widgets for Linux (well, originally written for, you can use Qt as well). What they have actually ported is GDK, which is a display system abstraction library. A GTK program will never use Windows/MacOS widgets natively because that is not its purpose, if you want that you should be using a widget toolkit abstraction lib like SWT or wxWindows. Or you could of course write a theme engine for GTK that simulates other platforms.

what about adobe

[digitalsushi]

I wonder what Adobe's take on this is, with the GIMP on the horizon? I wonder what percentage of Photoshop installations are legal viewed from both PC and Mac perspectives. Anyone know that stat, roughly? Course it's a hard number to calculate.

Re:what about adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

too lazy to login. I love my photoshop and wouldn't trade it for the world. Sure college students can't afford it, but most major universities have a couple copies installed in the computer labs. GIMP is nice, but photoshop gives you that extra edge to do graphics work efficiently. Like Photoshop's new heal brush. Now it's evern easier for people to look model gorgeous :P

Re:what about adobe

[foo12]

Until the GIMP even begins to approach Photoshop on color management and basic CMYK support, it's effectively a non-issue.

Re:what about adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

I read once that Photoshop *sells* more copies on the Mac than it does on Windows, a considerable margin considering the small percentage of Mac users compared to Windows users. Even taking into account dodgy copies off the Net, Mac usage of Photoshop outweighs the Windows platform.

I use Photoshop legitimately on the Mac. I'm a web designer, but I've also used UNIX for over 10 years solidly (which is why I use OS X now). I tried GIMP once this year. Never again. Fscking horrible program - file saves were dodgy, layers just don't work right (they should be editable over the size of the canvas, not restricted to the current size of the layer element), the GUI is appalling and most of the filters are worthless effects (coffee stain anyone?) that have no use in day-to-day image processing. Until GIMP stops playing at being an image editing program and takes things seriously by choosing proper filters and getting a proper GUI, Mac users will not change over. Heck, they'll use Photoshop Elements in preference to GIMP unless they are "colour-blind hedgehogs in a bag" (to paraphrase Blackadder).

As for FilmGIMP, I wish them well, but again - unless they fix their GUI - I don't see Shake and Combustion quaking in their boots...

Re:what about adobe

[chialea]

Also a PITA if you have a one-button mouse -- I don't carry my 3+ button one around with me, which has never been a problem before!

Lea

Re:What about a GTK version that uses native widge

[Anonymous Coward]

What they have actually ported is GDK, which is a display system abstraction library

I stand corrected. I guess what I am really asking is whether it is feasable to make a version of GTK, that in addition to porting GDK, would reuse native OS widgets and make them look (from a programmatic standpoint) like the GTK widgets. That way, things like wxWindows would not be necessary. Does this make sense at all?

Re:Cool - finally XChat! (offtopic)

[MmmmAqua]

while() { drink_guiness(); }

Will fail to compile. Should be while(1). :)

-the sig source Nazi

Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[alchemist68]

Macs are less expensive to own over the long term than PC's. The main factor that affects this is the power usage/requirements of the computer.

Check out ArsTechnica.com here to see a comparison of PowerPC and Intel pwer requirements:

http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.ht ml
http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/3q02/powerpc.htm l

Guy, I'm tellin' ya, you get what you pay for. Mercedes Benz isn't the fast car in the automarket, but they are one of the nicest; same analogy goes for Apple; not the fastest, but one of the nicest. Your Mac OS X box (not iMac) will grow with you for several years. My Blue and White 500MHz G3 is plenty fast enough for playing Quake and cruising the internet.

Re:Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf are you talking about?

OS X machines need upgrades and patches all the time, and even worse, they are user-specific by default (meaning each user needs to apply them themselves)...

Besides, I have both Win and Linux machines running with little or no upgrades.

Furthermore, whatever upgrades I did have, they were done rather seamlessly (clicking on Mandrakeupdate and a couple of "next" buttons, or in Windows the OS does it all by itself).

I am sick of fucking zealotry of this sort. "Mac is so user-friendly and everything else sucks..." attitude shows just how stupid you really are.

When OS X (FINALLY) got a decent upgrading tools that would patch security holes (some of which were size of Nebraska, i.e. Apache and case-insensitive browsing of the Unix filesysem), all Mac zealots were raving how it was the best thing that happened. Hate to break it to ya, but Windows had this since win 95, and it has been working flawlessly. Linux followed shortly thereafter.

Just because you have upgrades/patches (that do NOT cost $120 like in the case of OS X Jagwyre), that does not mean you need to upgrade. They are there to ensure that the OS is up to date and secure. If you don't care about that then don't upgrade. At least both Win and Linux do not charge you for those upgrades (and don't give me 98/Me crap either -- each of the releases Msft had, has had service packs which were FREE).

In terms of power consumption, this is total bullshit too. Just because I use less watts with a Mac does not mean I save money. If I need to render something fast, it will take me 2 times as long (and on your specs prolly 5-6 times as long) than on a PC. So, If I use 400 Watts in 1 Hour on a PC, and 150 Watts X 5-6 hours to do the same thing on your Mac, tell me how is that more efficient?

And speaking of efficiency, the average life span of an LCD is 3 years. This means that every three years I will need to dish out for either a new LCD (which is normally $500+, but since we're talking about an Apple product, we should probably add 30-50% on top of that), or a new computer. How efficient is that?

Finally, in today's day and age, no computer over a year old is consiered up-to-date any more (heck even a couple months old computer is already out of date), and by having an LCD built into my cpu simply forces me to re-buy an LCD with every new computer (iMac's and eMac's obviously).

In terms of car comparison, I'd rather compare Apple with Jetta's, which are overpriced and not too spacious, while having some nice visual/ergonomic design, generally do suck ass in terms of quality (I have one and since I bought it a year ago, I've had 5 recalls). PC's are more like sturdy mainstream cars, like Honda Accord, that have a lot of gizmos and a lot of power, are spacious, yet perhaps not as "curvy" as Jetta's, but certainly a lot better value.

Please think before you speak and spare the world of your ignorance...

Re:Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[Ponty]

I'll opt to ignore all of your factual errors and point out that in the English language it is unnecessary to use an apostrophe to pluralize proper nouns.

Good day, sir.

Re:Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll ignore everything you said and point out there have been three incrimental upgrades since your mystical $120 os.

Also I'll point out the jump from 10.2 to 10.3 was bigger than the jump from w2k to wxp. Apparently microsoft is worse than apple in this regard?

Re:Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll opt to ignore all of your factual errors and point out that in the English language it is unnecessary to use an apostrophe to pluralize proper nouns.

Oh, right! He uses an apostrophe to pluralize proper nouns, THEREFORE all he said must be not true! Oh, that's great, because that PROVES that Mac is better than PC! Where the fuck have you learnt such a moronic logic? Oh, you mean that it is easier to say that someone can't spell than to use any meaningful argument to prove your point? Wait, maybe he IS right, and these are you Mac zealots that are wrong? Have you ever stopped to think about that?

PLEASE MOD THIS ASSHOLE DOWN! HE'S A KNOWN TROLL.

THANK YOU.

Re:Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[Ponty]

Hehe. Yep, I'm a known troll. And you're an AC. (I think the appropriate term is "nanny nanny boo boo.")

Okay. To your (his?) points: "OS X machines need upgrades and patches all the time, and even worse, they are user-specific." Upgrades and patches all the time? A glance at debian.org reports ten security vulnerabilities in deb packages that need to be addressed. I'm not saying that those are weaknesses in the system (I see them as strengths, in fact) but to say that Mac OS X's regular software updates are a weakness is to be grasping for a point where one really doesn't exist. I installed 10.2 on my PowerBook. I downloaded the 10.2.3 joint updater, the IE security update (a non-Apple product), the Stuffit security update (a non-Apple product), and the AirPort software update because I wanted to update my base station. Ta daa!

Oh, and they aren't user-specific by default. Are you (is he?) suggesting that when I update IE, I have to update my local IE? Nope. The admin installs updates and the system-wide software is updated. You're (he's) just wrong on that one.

The Mac is fairly friendly. But it's still a complicated modern operating system and can be confusing. No biggie there. I'd still (and did) give my grandmother that instead of Windows.

10.2 is a whole 'nother operating system! It's like going from Win95 to Win98. I agree that there should have been upgrade pricing, but it's not that big a deal, really. It's a new OS. Not a patch, not a maintenance release, a whole new OS!

Power consumption? What the hell? I don't really care. I've never seen anyone to whom I care to pay attention to trying to argue that Macs consume less power than PCs (though they may, I really don't know.) For all I know, you (he) may be right, though I suspect that you'll (he'll) be hard-pressed to find many tasks that take 1 hour on a PC and 5-6 on a Mac.

What kind of crap-ass LCDs are you (is he) using that die in 3 years? I have hardware with LCDs that's a heck of a lot older than that. And eMacs use CRTs.

Quality? How do Mac(')s suck in terms of quality? I haven't gotten that picture from any of your (his) to-date arguments, but I have a couple of burned out midrange PC motherboards and notebook computers sitting in my closet to dump into your (his) Honda if you (he) want(s) to haul them away for me.

P.S., I wasn't suggesting that your (his?) grammatical errors prove that a Mac is better than a PC. I was simply suggesting that you (he?) might think about addressing your (his) use of apostrophes in the future. It takes a mind itchin' for a fight to jump from my comment to "Where the fuck have you learnt such a moronic logic?" But I like to feed trolls.

Let me get this straight...

[Talez]

You already paid $600 for a copy of Photoshop and you're going to throw it out...

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless he didn't pay for it

Re:Let me get this straight...

[jonadab]

Maybe he got the educational discount. Or maybe he's using an older
version and can't afford to upgrade. I have a friend who works in
graphic design at a publishing company, and he heard about Gimp and
was experimenting with it. What he told me was, that it actually had
some features he was wishing Photoshop had, until he got the latest
version of Photoshop, which had them in spades. In other words, it
is comparable enough that a new version of Gimp might be better than
an old version of Photoshop.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[bsharitt]

Or he did like me a got it via Limewire. I would like a native version of the GIMP for OS X, that way I don't feel so guilty.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[kyrre]

No. I am afraid I never paid for the copy I have. Come to think of it. The guy that gave me the cd did not even get money for the CD-R he burned for me. I do not use Photoshop proffesionaly. In fact I do not use it much at all. I am a student and could not possibly afford to shell out the $600+ for a piece of software I hardly use. One of the reasons why I look forward to the day I can replace it with The Gimp.

Photoshop is the only software I have an illegal copy of.

that's one nice port out of the way...

[thumperward]

How wonderfully awesome. Now if someone would port GTK+ to Windows instead of pretending they did and in fact using some Linux emulation trickery to make apps seem to run on Windows but using the most hideous, disgusting interface humanly possible (see Windows GIMP, Windows GAIM, anything else Windows GTK+ related) then I'd be even more impressed.

Can't you skin GTK or something on Linux to make it not look quite as much like ass? Is there any way of making the Windows port do this, at all?

- Chris

Re:that's one nice port out of the way...

[IamTheRealMike]

Can't you skin GTK or something on Linux to make it not look quite as much like ass? Is there any way of making the Windows port do this, at all?

Yes, the GTK default skin is awful. Everybody uses a a more modern theme such as Mist, ThinICE, BlueCurve et al. You can choose the theme on Windows, but I dunno how. Go find some GNOME2 screenshots at gnome.org to see that GTK can actually look very nice and professional.

The windows situation should improve soon, GTK2.2 has much better windows support and the next stable version of the gimp uses it (along with much nicer artwork and looks all round).

Re:that's one nice port out of the way...

[WasterDave]

What you want is wxWindows.

Dave

Re:Why GTK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tsk tsk. Comparing Gnome to KDE is like arguing over whether the Corvair is better than the Edsel; it ignores the fact that BOTH SUCK.

Why are so many Lunix geeks afraid of using a Mac? Because they know that once the start both using and programming in Mac OS X, they'll never be able to go back to their circa-1990 desktops and APIs again.

Re:What about a GTK version that uses native widge

[IamTheRealMike]

It could be done, but would require massive effort. GTK was never really designed for that sort of thing.

Re:Happy gnu year/millennium

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Gee. All this time I thought James Joyce died in 1941. Who knew he was posting as an AC on Slashdot?

overwrung. A charmful waterloose post, dacently gaylaboring the auld meanderthalltale from jayjay's mything Byoublong of farago. D'ya dismember what a mnice old mness it all mnakes? But Hark! Hark! Tray chairs fur Muster Anonymous Coward in a roustering rendition of "Miss Hooligan's Christmas Cake," the topsiest mnoment of a quarky under-parformance. Stillandall, the posts a way a long a last a long a little.

Don't think Gimp.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Don't think Gimp. Think OpenOffice. Think Mozilla. Think apps that people actually want on the Mac. I've believed for a long time that Apple should be pushing really hard to make these two applications not only available, but downright pervasive on the Mac. This will eliminate Apple's indentured servitude to Microsoft and allow them to push forward in any direction they like without Microsoft threatening to pull the plug on Office (and to a lesser extent, IE) every time Apple tiptoes in a direction that offends Bill's delicate sensibilities.

Native GTK for Mac OS is a good way to kickstart apps like Moz and OO on the platform without requiring XFree86 to be installed first (which works wonderfully, but is a bit too hackish for nontechnical Mac users). Then Apple and others can begin working on making the integration more and more native-looking.

Re:Don't think Gimp.

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenOffice doesnt use Gtk+. Mozilla on MacOS X doesnt use Gtk+ (Mozilla on Linux uses Gtk+, on OS X it uses Carbon I believe)

Re:Don't think Gimp.

[Anonymous Coward]

A little birdy told me that Apple will be announcing an Apple-branded web browser based on Chimera (which is based on Mozilla) at the next Apple shin-dig...

As for office, hmm, dunno, I think MS Office is what people want.

Re:Don't think Gimp.

[tomdarch]

Apple won't publicly, directly support these moves because it still has to talk and negotiate with M$. At the same time, they must be happy that these apps are moving forward, but without needing their direct support. These open apps are a percieved threat to M$ across several platforms, so Apple gets a little leverage with M$ (because cutting Office for Mac is less of a doomsday scenario), without being 'one of the bad guys.' Also, don't forget that Apple has it's own competing product to OpenOffice - AppleWorks.

Regarding Apple's homegrown browser, I would guess that it will just drive M$ to make IE for Windows even less stnadards compliant, forcing web developers to follow, and making IE on Windows the only way to reliably interact with lots more web sites.

Re:Don't think Gimp.

[marmoset]

I'm not trying to be a smartass here, but there's already a very advanced Mac build of Mozilla (utilizing a Carbon front end), not to mention a pretty darned great Gecko-based browser, Chimera, using a Cocoa front-end. What could a GTK-based Mozilla offer Apple or Mac users that those two aren't already doing?

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

> It means that many popular Linux programs can
> be ported to run natively with Mac OS X's Aqua
> user interface

Bringing that grey Motif look to a Mac near you!

Sounds Promising For an Evolution Port

[good soldier svejk]

I knew this was in the works, but a release is good news. Hopefully it will lead to a port of the top app on my OS X wish list, Ximian Evolution. If Evolution runs natively on OS X it will be very easy to drum up enough demand to get Ximian to port Connector. Then OS X users will no longer need to run crappy Outlook 2001 under crappy Classic.

Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[g4dget]

If Apple wanted support for regular UNIX GUIs, they would integrate XDarwin into OSX--it could be done more easily and more transparently than Carbon or Java are integrated right now.

Apple wants people to port their applications to Cocoa. That's the only kind of GUI they want on OSX. They have said so. I think it's stupid. I think it makes OSX pretty unattractive for UNIX workstation users. But it's Apple's wish, and it's Apple strategy. I don't see any point in fighting it, and I don't see any point for open source efforts to waste any time on doing something Apple doesn't want in the first place.

For me, it means that I'm going to continue to use my Mac mostly as a decorative jukebox, and my Linux machine to replace my UNIX workstation.

Think Evolution

[good soldier svejk]

Don't think Gimp. Think OpenOffice. Think Mozilla. Think apps that people actually want on the Mac.

Evolution is a GTK+ app and OS X users in Exchange shops desperately need it (and Connector). All the MS-centric solutions for OS X Exchange connectivity suck.

I'm pretty happy with the CarbonCFM port of Mozilla and ecstatic about Chimera. OO is well on its way to a Carbon (IIRC) port and is not GTK based anyway (again, IIRC).

Re:Why GTK?

[Oculus Habent]

In fairness, Linux allows you to do something that fwe other current operating systems do: install the newest OS on FRIGGIN OLD hardware.

That's a plus in many people's books.

(OT) Re:Cool - finally XChat! (offtopic)

[CoolVibe]

Nonononono...

for (;;) { drink_guiness(); }

*ducks*

Re:(OT) Re:Cool - finally XChat! (offtopic)

[thumperward]

Awesome, I get to win this.

for(;;)
{
drink_guinness();
}

- Chris

Re:(OT) Re:Cool - finally XChat! (offtopic)

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, you have it all wrong...

while (drink $guiness) {}

Re:Why GTK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shove your opinions up your ass.

This is a discussion board, not I-AM-MAC-PATHETIC-USER-ANONYMOUS 101 rehab center...

For a more marginal $99

[2nd Post!]

You could get Photoshop Elements. Yeah, it's more expensive than graphic converter, but you get 90% of Photoshop for 15% of the price, and it still beats the pants of GIMP for most stuff :)

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[analog_line]

Excuse me, but I don't give a shit what Apple wants or doesn't want me to be able to run on their hardware. I'd like to run some GTK-based applications natively under Aqua without having to run a second window manager that happens to be resource intensive and buggy-as-hell along side it. Apparently a lot of other people want to as well.

This has nothing at all to do with "support for regular UNIX GUIs", it's about expanding support for the Aqua GUI. It's about making X11 less necessary, not making it more necessary.

I don't care what you do with your Mac, or your Linux machine. Neither does anyone else in here. If you want to waste the electricity and processor on a jukebox, well, you go for it.

Tcl Tk

[Anonymous Coward]

Tcl and Tk have been working fine for a while on MacOS X. Of course, they don't have all the buzz and slashdot karma that gtk do...

Re:Tcl Tk

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it might have more buzz and slashdot karma if the Mac Os X-Python-Tkinter folks would write up a usable HOWTO to get everything working correctly.

I think the reason they don't have such a thing available is because Python (and the Macho version of it) are in such flux.

those guise are dead?

[Anonymous Coward]

did they jump off of opulent towers of self-adulation they had had billked for themselves? no just writers. we're not interested in that stuff. we mostly track the far reaching tenacles of the evile felons over at wall street of deceit. some say the tenacles have surrounded lairy/robbIE et al.

you don't have to be a roads scowler to cypher bs.

First letter of an acronym?

[nft]

If GTK stands for GIMP Tool Kit, and GIMP stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Tool, wouldn't GTK = Gnu Tool Kit? No digits, but it's all math. : )

WHY IS THIS FLAMEBAIT???

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the moderators smoking today???

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[g4dget]

Excuse me, but I don't give a shit what Apple wants or doesn't want me to be able to run on their hardware.

Well, you should, because ultimately, Apple does control what does and doesn't run there.

it's about expanding support for the Aqua GUI.

The Gtk+ port does not use the Aqua GUI, it uses the regular Gtk+ rendering and primitives. It's not much different from running Gtk+ under XDarwin.

I don't care what you do with your Mac, or your Linux machine.

Well, perhaps you should. The fewer people buy and use Macs, the more trouble Apple is in. And if the open source community doesn't bother with supporting ports of open source software to the Mac anymore, you won't be getting much open source software anymore either.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[CoolVibe]

But Apple doesn't fight this. You think they don't want this? What color is the sky on your planet? This means more apps on Quartz for OSX. Yeah right, they don't want it...

Re:Why GTK?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with most computer users is that they've been brainwashed into thinking that they NEED a desktop. You know how many icons appear on my computer? Zero. If I need a program, I click the root window, which pops up a menu, which has all of the programs I need. Then I manage all my files on the command line. It's a lot simpler that way.

Sure. The ordinary user would need a GUI to manage his files. But hey, who says it has to fit the desktop paradigm? Remember Windows 3.1's "File Manager"? What's wrong with an approach like that, on top of what I've just described?

The fact of the matter is, the desktop paradigm sucks, and half the time it's just a pain in the ass that gets in your way.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[g4dget]

This means more apps on Quartz for OSX. Yeah right, they don't want it...

Yes, they don't want this. Gtk+OSX applications are not Macintosh native, and they are not consistent.

Of course, since Apple can't easily stop this, they'll still be happy to count the application when making claims about how much software OSX supports.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[Ilan Volow]

Not only Apple doesn't want a non-consistant user experience, but most mac users don't want a non-consistant user experience, either.

In fact, most sane people on any platform want a consistant user experience.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[Ilan Volow]

But if open source software people hurt apple by not supporting ports to the mac, and apple goes out of business, where are open source people going to steal all their ideas for themes from?

Congratulations

[theolein]

This has been wanted for a long time. It is a true sign that OSX is becoming a mainstream Unix and, despite all the complaining about GTK, it says a lot about the flexibility of the design. The obvious problems such as menu bars will eventually be overcome and I'm sure that the GIMP will get ported to GTK+2 some time.

Good on the people that did all the hard work and thanks.

Blech

[Dr. Sp0ng]

If you'll excuse me, I have some things to get off my chest.

Christ, I just don't understand you people sometimes. You pay good money for a Mac and a copy of OS X, and then you cheer for a half-assed port of GTK+, the most horrible toolkit ever conceived? I mean, come on, at least put the fucking menubar on top of the screen where it belongs!

I'm not a Mac zealot. I love my Mac, but I'm also a fan of Windows XP (from a useability, if not technological, standpoint), and have been using Linux since before the kernel hit the big 1.0 (although, since the train wreck that has been kernel 2.4 hit the world, I've moved everything important over to FreeBSD). I spent years championing free software, but one can only take so much of "that'll be fixed soon, we promise," before the idea of a free desktop stops being attractive.

I cannot stand to use a GTK+-based application without cringing - applying a skin-deep theme doesn't fix the useability and design problems, which go straight to the core (granted, a lot of this stems from the "evil robot" UI designer another posted in this thread pointed out, and there's not much a toolkit can do about that, but the problem seems worse for most GTK+ apps than, say, Qt). GTK+ apps, without a SINGLE EXCEPTION that I have seen, just scream "AMATEUR!" The GIMP is the only GTK+ application I have seen which comes even close to feeling professional, and it's still got a long way to go. Qt apps are much better in the respect, and that probably stems from the fact that programmers who use Qt (at least in the context of KDE applications) tend to pay more attention to KDE's UI guidelines than GTK+ programmers do to Gnome's guidelines. But they both have the same problem in the end - without somebody to have the final say in the user interface area, a coherent desktop is impossible, because anybody who has other ideas is free to implement them. That may work fine in other areas of software development (and indeed, has, as free software spanks the competition in most other areas), but on the desktop, it just can't fly.

I, for one, will stay the hell away from this port, even if they fix the menubar issues and make a convincing Aqua theme (which, to this point, has not been done by anybody, so I'm not counting on colorblind, aesthetically-challenged free software types to pull it off). Even if the widgets manage to blend in with the native ones, GTK+ applications will always stick out like a sore thumb. The Mac interface is about much more than blue, pulsating buttons - interfaces are DESIGNED, not HACKED TOGETHER.

The only thing this port will be good for is a temporary stepping stone from X11 to Aqua - and not a very good one, at that. I wish free software people would drop GTK+ for a more reasonable toolkit, like Qt, which doesn't actively try to drive the programmer to drink. The best case would be if the GNUStep people would 1) finish up their god damned project, and 2) make it less ugly. That way native OS X applications could be written the way God intended (in Cocoa), and easily ported to other operating systems. As the author of several programs using GTK+, Qt, and Cocoa, I can honestly say that I would sooner work for minimum wage flipping burgers at McDonalds than ever write another line of code using GTK+. Qt is decent, and Cocoa is by far the best. But GTK+... ugh, there is just not a single redeeming feature to this entire toolkit.

Then again, I'm even picky when it comes to Carbon vs. Cocoa - even Carbon applications don't feel right on OS X (especially the Carbon port of Vim, which makes me cry). Give me native Cocoa apps, or give me death.

Re:Blech

[Junta]

GTK+ is not the worst. In fact, with gtkmm or PyGtk, it is quite palleteable. I would say gtkmm and qt are on equal footing.

As far as UI design is concerned, it really reflects the different design goals of GTK+ versus Apple APIs. GTK+ strives to provide maximal flexibility. Let the developer chose however he wants to design the app and provide some way to implement it. Flys in the face of consistancy, but there is a reason. Apple kills flexibility to enforce consistancy. Though I respect both goals, and think GTK+OSX is a REALLY good step for providing ports of complex apps quickly versus XDarwin, I agree that developers should consider how badly GTK+ apps will stick out like a sore thumb in OSX. They can work to make some widgets more seamless (i.e. menubar, button appearance, etc.), but others will always stand out (detachable handleboxes, for example. They can be quite useful (on multi-head configurations), but I don't think they are anywhere to be found in OSX).

Re:Blech

[Anonymous Coward]

...and a UI should be flexible exactly why?

Programmers should not be permitted to design interfaces. It should be a law, punishable by death. Your posting is a classic example: you actually believe that "flexibility" (by which you mean "I can skin it any way I like") is relevant.

Repeat after me. Graphical interface code is DIFFERENT than the rest of your code because it is INTERACTING WITH A HUMAN BEING. The primary goal of an interface is to make the program easy for the user to grok. Inconsistency between applications means the user has to dedicate millions of neurons to remember that Weird Widget in Program X works differently than Weird Widget in Program Y. Consistency is EVERYTHING in a GUI. GTK+ is hideously, grotesquely inconsistent, and apps made in it generally have crap for interfaces.

Some programmers just have their beanies screwed on too tight.

Re:Blech

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, GTK+ is terrible in comparison to something like QT, and Aqua blows it away. That GTK+ File Open dialog is just terrible. I've been using Linux long enough, though, to remember when using a GTK+ app was the pinnacle of GUI sophistication.

Ever used OpenLook?

Now if only....

[d3vpsaux]

... Apple would release an Aqua TK for those of us financially constrained (students) to PC hardware, providing us pretty, OSX-like user environments for GNU/Darwin.

-- d3v
In Soviet Russia - Pr0n whacks off to you!

Re:Now if only....

[Anonymous Coward]

Like this one???

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people care about as much whether their applications are "consistent" as they care whether their microwave and their washing machines are consistent. As long as it's easy to use and gets the job done, it's fine with them.

However, there is a subpopulation of obsessive compulsive people who make sure they buy the same brand of washing machine and microwave to avoid inconsistency. Not surprisingly, those are the same people who buy Macs. Whether they are "sane" is a matter of perspective.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[bnenning]

Apple wants people to port their applications to Cocoa. That's the only kind of GUI they want on OSX.

True, and false. Apple emphasizes Cocoa and doesn't provide a built-in X server, but that doesn't mean they're hostile to the concept of running X apps. They even link to the XFree86 Darwin port.

I don't see any point in fighting it, and I don't see any point for open source efforts to waste any time on doing something Apple doesn't want in the first place.

There's nothing to fight, and even if there were, Apple doesn't control what software you run. By that reasoning developing Mozilla for Windows is pointless since Microsoft doesn't like it.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, Apple don't support that kind of stuff at all... Xfree86 isn't even linked at the Apple site.... :)

Re:What about a GTK version that uses native widge

[Guy Harris]

GTK is the native OS widgets for Linux

Actually, GTK is a native widget set for OSes using X11 as the native window system, including but not limited to Linux. It is no more "the" native widget set for those systems than are Qt, FLTK, Motif, the Athena Widgets, etc., and it's not at all Linux-specific.

But your underlying point, namely that there is no "native" widget set for UNIX+X11 systems that GTK+ "should" be using, is correct.

I think Qt also replaces the native widgets on non-X11 platforms on which it runs and that have native widgets, such as Windows and MacOS X.

pshop advantage is cymk

[mr_burns]

the reason people will stick to photoshop is color. Gimp is good for rgb and greyscale, but is useless for print, which needs cmyk color. Not all jobs use cmyk, but why use 2 environments? Photoshop does all color as LAB then converts to the selected color mode. Gimp just doesn't compare to photoshop in the use of color.

Film Gimp, however, could give photoshop a kick in the nards. Recently used in Scooby Doo, it's 16 bit per channel in RGB designed specifically for motion picture retouching and rotoscoping. Photoshop just doesn't have the capabilities film gimp has when it comes to these. The RGB only flaw is not as big a problem in film and video.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[analog_line]

Well, you should, because ultimately, Apple does control what does and doesn't run there.

Actually, no. They control what does or does not run under their operating system. I run Linux on an older iMac. People (for some reason I can't fathom) run Linux on newer machines that run OS X fine. Hell, Apple even helped support one of the older linux-for-macs distributions. In the end, what you use it for doesn't matter a whole lot to them, they just make the hardware. Yeah, they'll happily sell you other stuff if you want it, but they're not (yet) about stopping you from doing anything with it. (No, the iDVD thing isn't about hardware, the person in question was altering iDVD, an Apple piece of software)

It's not much different from running Gtk+ under XDarwin.

Actually, it's very different. I don't need to hog system resources running two window managers. I don't care if the applications don't follow the Apple spec for GUI design on a Mac. If that's what I wanted, what makes you think I'd even be bothering with GTK+ at all?

Well, perhaps you should.

Perhaps I shouldn't.

The fewer people buy and use Macs, the more trouble Apple is in.

I could get into the idiotic rumors of Apple's demise, but they've been gone over and over. The computer manufacturing industry is faltering all over. Apple isn't alone, no matter how you might wish it to be.

And if the open source community doesn't bother with supporting ports of open source software to the Mac anymore, you won't be getting much open source software anymore either.

This is the same "open source community" that ports things to the Amiga, BeOS, Irix, praises someone like Stallman for a "revolutionary operating system" that's more vaporware than half of the dead dotcoms? And there's supposed to be some way for you to stop people from porting things to a PPC architecture and Darwin when someone gets a bug up their ass about it later?

I would consider myself unconcerned... =)

Okay so how do I use this (n00b question) ??

[47Ronin]

I've opened the pbproj files and clicked the Build button, which seemingly compiled and built stuff into the Frameworks folder. Not knowing what was supposed to happen, I copied the resultant gdk.framework and gtk.framework folders to /Library/Frameworks ...glib-1.2.10 installed like any other UNIX library.

Okay so now how do I compile typical UNIX gtk+ apps against this new "aqua-compatible" GTK? I tried compiling the nessus-core --enable-gtk but it's looking for the binaries gtk-config, etc! Project Builder didn't install such binaries into /usr/local/bin ... wtf?

I guess what I'm asking is how do I take a generic gtk app from source (like nessus) and build it using the gtk-osx libraries/frameworks instead of regular gtk (which I would normally do via Fink)?

Re:Okay so how do I use this (n00b question) ??

[hoytt]

I'm no expert in compiling on the Mac, but IIRC you can specify which framework to use when compiling in OS X. For instance compiling a file with the cocoa framework comes down to:

cc -o name filename.m framework cocoa

so if the anology works, compiling a file for the gtk-osx framework would be

cc -o name filename.c framework gtk-osx

I haven't installed it myself, but will do that later today. I may post a follow up if I get it working.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The purpose of XFree86 on OS X to Apple is to allow OS X users to access graphical UNIX applications remotely. To them, it has roughly the same status as a 3270 emulator.

When it comes to local applications, Apple representatives tell UNIX users to port their software to Cocoa. Apple does not want a lot of X11 applications running on OS X.

lol!

[Ender Ryan]

Damn, I know what you mean, I can't stand reading Python!

I haven't done much Python, but the little I have done sure did drive me nuts. I'd rather write 5x more C code to do the same thing than code in Python.

Then again, I do more coding in Perl than anything else, so what do I know? ;-)

BTW, IamTheRealMike is correct, the example you used is absolutely horrible, as you can do GTK with much less code than that. OTOH, the Cocoa API is much, much nicer, even without taking the amount of code into consideration.

Wake up! It's been unfinished for *10* years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, GNUstep has been around for aeons. It's the reason GNOME was created -- Miguel was tired of the sloooooow progress and politics of the GNUstep group. It's been a work in progress for the last *10* years. 10 years! How long did it take to write the code in ASM for the original Mac 128K Finder?

Today, GNUstep is a hack-up implementation of the OPENSTEP API mixed with some Apple OSX API stuff. It's a mess, it's slow, and it doesn't have anything interesting to contribute to free software that can't be done elsewhere.

Even RMS doesn't support it, because it doesn't fit into his scheme of free software. So, why is it GNUstep if it won't even be in GNU?

Re:Wake up! It's been unfinished for *10* years.

[Anonymous Coward]

nice troll, troll.

Appleworks versus OO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you haven't used OO. Comparing Appleworks to OpenOffice is like comparing a Yugo to a Ferrari. Appleworks is perhaps the crappiest "suite" out their, second to MS Works.

A GTK+ Version of OO on OS X would be a great thing. And if you're following the OO timeline, we are nearly a year away from a stable OO in native Aqua. A year is a lot of boxes, and a lot of marketshare lost.

gdk-pixbuf

[kuhn]

no gdk-pixbuf! argh.. cant compile gaim ;-)

hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me GIMP actually does cost the average Mac user money...it's impossable to use with a 1 button mouse because of a poorly designed UI, just like all the other Linux GUI's. So tack on the cost of a three button mouse.