The NeXT-Best Thing: GNUSTEP 0.9.4 Live CD

roard writes "Following the NeXT tradition with mixed case, GNUSTEP is a live CD/distribution while GNUstep is an implementation of the OpenStep API. GNUSTEP is based on Morphix, and uses the GNUstep libraries and GNUstep-based applications to provide a NeXTSTEP-like environment that people can easily test and use. This new 0.9.4 release comes 8 months since the precedent 0.5 release, and brings a lot of new GNUstep applications with it, as well as an upgrade of the GNUstep libraries and the development tools. In other news, a small demonstration of GNUstep development tools is available in Flash or divx. The old dream of having a GNU OS with Hurd and an OpenStep implementation doesn't seems that far now ;)"

Comments

GNU's not Unix - but it is, apparently, Mac OS X

[1010011010]

Microkernel, unix-like userspace, Nextstep-based application development?

Right here.

Re:Hurd?

[Pflipp]

Like Hurd was the perceived GNU kernel, GNUstep was the perceived GNU GUI.

Re:Hurd?

[TheRaven64]

GNUstep, like HURD, is a GNU project that has been going on for ages (it predates KDE and GNOME), without appearing to get close to completion. Unlike KDE or GNOME, which can incrementally add and deprecate features and APIs (potentially ending up with the same mess of legacy interfaces that plagues Windows), GNUstep is implementing the OPENSTEP API, jointly developed by NeXT and Sun. This meant that it was not particularly usable until it was about 90% done. This happened in the last year or so which, combined with the introduction of OPENSTEP into the mainstream in the form of Cocoa on OS X, lead to an increase in interest in GNUstep.

The relevance to HURD is tenuous, but I recall Roard mentioning recently that he had seen a demo of a GNUstep desktop running on top of HURD, giving a 100% GNU desktop. Perhaps this is what he was referring to. It doesn't bring HURD any close to release, but when HURD is ready (Real Soon Now(TM)), it is likely that there will be a GNUstep desktop waiting for it. If only the GCC developers would commit Objective-C++ to the main tree and let is have a WebKit-based browser...

ISO download sites

[tarzeau]

Thanks Department of Physics, ETHZ, GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso
Thanks inode.at and Robe GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso
Thanks Lyle E. Dodge, GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso
Thanks Philipp, GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso
Thanks Daniel Aubry, GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso
Thanks Peter Samuelson, GNUSTEP-i386-0.9.4.iso

Re:Nice Demo

[TheRaven64]

Actually, that's not the cool thing. The cools thing is that the simple app with two lines of code implements the Model-Controller-View pattern. This means that this development approach is 100% scalable to large projects. Oh, and the fact that the output from GORM is a set of serialised objects, so you can instantiate them from the code with the same ease that you would create an object from within your code (particularly useful in document based applications where you'd want to create a large number of identical document views connected to different models).

Re:video

[Wordsmith]

It's a codec that might be contained within avi files, or wmv files, or mov files. MPG files are explicitly mpegs.

Now, to make it even more fun. divx is an implimentation of mpeg-4. So even through it's not an mpeg1 or mpeg2 file, in a sense, it's still an mpeg file.

Re:wHy WaS NeXT nAmED LiKE ThAT aNyHoW?

[BlueGecko]

NeXT has that capitalization because the original NeXT logo had that capitalization. It had that capitalization because the artist wanted to emphasize several adjectives that started with e (I don't remember them at this point, but they were words such as excellent, extendable, educational, and so on) so he made the e lowercase.

NEXTSTEP the operating system is and always has been all caps. OPENSTEP the operating system has also always been all caps. OpenStep the API specification is capitalized in camel case, and I'm not going to touch NeXT's computers, because I always get them wrong.

Re:yeah... but it looks like its from the 80s

[linguae]

I agree, too. Judging by the screenshots, the Mac OS X port looks very attractive and, to my knowledge, follows the Apple Human Interface Guidelines completely. Heck, it looks just as good as the Mail.app bundled with Mac OS X. The GNUstep version, on the other hand, doesn't look as attractive. Assuming that GNUstep applications follow the design of NEXTSTEP applications, it needs some work. The toolbar should look like buttons, not like an Internet Explorer 3.0-esque design. I also don't really like the arrangement of some of the widgets.

This is an example of the NEXTSTEP Mail.app program. You can see that the GNUMail.app application got many parts right, but its interface still needs some cleaning up to do.