Talk to the GNUWin II Team

imevil writes "GNUWin II is a collection of Free Software for Windows, and it also includes articles about Free Software and explanation pages. It is multilingual (it was born as a Swiss product). You can browse the CD online or download the ISO from one of our mirrors. The GNUWin II team is ready to answer to your questions, about GNUWin II, and also about GNU Generation, the student association at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne who gave birth to the GNUWin project."

Comments

Major problems

[kruetz]

What was the hardest aspect of producing the GNUWin II CD? Was it selecting the software? Was it making sure the software worked okay (ie, were there any major portings issues, and if so, how much work did you have to do vs. how much did the developer do). Was it something else entirely?

Also, what criteria did you use to select the software? Did you consider which applications had a UI that Windows users would find more comfortable? Did you consider any programs that you weren't able to get running under Windows?

BTW, best of luck with the project. My father has been using the Win32 port of the GIMP for about two years now and loves it! As I type, he's (ab)using his work's net connection to d/l the ISOs.

from the "making-windows-liveable" dept?

[TheReckoning]

Windows is pretty easy to live with as it is.

I guess it depends on your paradigm... command-line commandos don't like the GUI's insulation, while GUI geeks hate remembering a bunch of bizarre program names.

Unless I'm missing the point - the only real failing of Win32 is that a lot of stuff can't be scripted because of the lack of a CLI. Does GNUWIN allow for some of this? Does it have hooks into system admin programs on Win32?

Re:from the "making-windows-liveable" dept?

[stratjakt]

>> Unless I'm missing the point - the only real failing of Win32 is that a lot of stuff can't be scripted because of the lack of a CLI

If anything, Windows is even more scriptable than linux because of COM and it's progeny, ActiveX. The functionality of just about every portion of the OS is available, and that of any application that chooses to expose it's functionality. So script away in VBScript, Javascript, TCL, or any other COM-aware language - dealers choice.

Linux is great and all, but you really wind up with an incohesive jumble of software, each developed in it's own little bubble with no knowledge of the others. If your lucky you can get an integer return value to tie it all together.

The problem with most free software for windows is that it carries the *nix school of thought. No exposed interfaces, and they don't like to play nice with the rest of the system. COM is really a binary format that has nothing to do with OS's (there's no reason it couldnt be implemented in linux), so it's not about it being proprietary.

MS-bashers are quick to point out shortcomings in the OS, but never seem to notice the Good Things (tm) that make it popular.