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Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

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Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#21

Post by barrkel »

Sanddancer wrote: post #7
rjzzleep wrote: post #6

yeah it's old. personally i'm wondering how complicated it would be to have a transparent wineish layer for running mac binaries on linux. the kernel modules are i guess the biggest problem, but last i remember they were fairly heavily based on their freebsd counterparts(well, at least many years ago) i wish vmware workstation in linux was as good as the mac and windows counterparts ... then i could just run linux as…

The biggest problem would be the binary loader. OS X uses the Mach-O executable format, as opposed to the ELF format used in other unixes. There is a project to get Mach-O binaries to be usable under other unixes,, but it looks to be a ways off still -- http://darling.dolezel.info/en/Darling

There isn't a whole lot of magic in loaders. They do much the same job as linkers, except instead of files on disk, they set up pages in memory. All the import slots are filled with references to all the corresponding exports, until all imports are satisfied; and all the relocations are adjusted based on load location. There are a couple more wrinkles for optimization and extra functionality, but that's approximately it.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#22

Post by networked »

How viable nowadays is cross-platform application or server software development in Objective-C compared to the same in C++? GNUstep appears to be the best (only) solution for the former; is that so?

Edit: To clarify, I'm asking this as a developer who does most work on Linux. My interest in Obj-C is primarily due to its Smalltalk-like message passing mechanism. Edit 2: clarity.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#23

Post by throwawaykf03 »

I messed around with GNUstep on Ubuntu around 2011-ish when I tried to port an OS X service to Linux. (I did not touch Etoile, though, as I didn't need a GUI.) I didn't come away with a good impression at all.

It was not very easy to get up and running, the documentation was lacking, requiring digging through many mailing lists, and it didn't support Objective-C 2.0... which was a big pain since the code was in Objective-C 2.0. Some of the libraries didn't even compile, for which I submitted a patch or two that never got accepted. When I finally got the app to compile, it was rather slow, so I abandoned further work.

Looking at the wiki, it apparently still does not properly support Objective C 2.0, and does not even mention plans for things like ARC. I don't think it'll see any adoption until they bring it closer to modern Objective-C style development.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#24

Post by sbuk »

pera wrote: post #17
sbuk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pull-downs are entirely Apple's: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_P... and http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Busy_Being_Born.t...

That's interesting, IIRC pull-downs were used in GEM and Amiga Workbench too...

They both did, but came after Apples implement implementation in Lisa.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#26

Post by kunai »

robert-wallis wrote: post #11

Apple has a patent on the Dock. https://www.google.com/patents/US7434177 And clickable pull-down menus in the menu bar. https://www.google.com/patents/USD629412 The legal system strikes again.

Oh shit. Ubuntu better change their menus...

...that they've been using from 2005. Oh, they also really have to change their dock!...

...that they've been using from 2011.

The menu patent is a design patent, so you'd have to have a translucent menubar and menus to infringe. The Dock patent is, I believe, strictly for magnification and behavior, so icons arranged in a row do not infringe.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#27

Post by Someone »

pera wrote: post #17
sbuk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pull-downs are entirely Apple's: http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_P... and http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Busy_Being_Born.t...

That's interesting, IIRC pull-downs were used in GEM and Amiga Workbench too...

The Apple Lisa was released in January 1983, GEM was first demoed in November 1984 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMDEX), and Amiga Workbench was released in july 1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workbench_(AmigaOS), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000)

I don't think anybody ever claimed parallel inventions here.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#28

Post by rsynnott »

throwawaykf03 wrote: post #20
robert-wallis wrote: post #11

Apple has a patent on the Dock. https://www.google.com/patents/US7434177 And clickable pull-down menus in the menu bar. https://www.google.com/patents/USD629412 The legal system strikes again.

The Dock patent is specifically on the dynamic resizing and repositioning of icons when moused over. A plain collection of icons won't infringe this patent. The second patent is a design patent, which means you'd have to have a menu exactly like that to infringe. Funnily enough, one of the icons in the figures in the first patent is for Internet Explorer. I think I also spied one for Word.

It's from 1999; at that time, Apple shipped IE.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#29

Post by aaronbrethorst »

networked wrote: post #22

How viable nowadays is cross-platform application or server software development in Objective-C compared to the same in C++? GNUstep appears to be the best (only) solution for the former; is that so? Edit: To clarify, I'm asking this as a developer who does most work on Linux. My interest in Obj-C is primarily due to its Smalltalk-like message passing mechanism. Edit 2: clarity.

There's Apportable for Android (http://www.apportable.com), which—I'm guessing—likely uses Cocotron under the hood: http://www.cocotron.org

But, in general, not very. Objective-C compilers certainly exist for Windows and Linux, but aren't worth much without Apple's frameworks.

Re: Etoile: a GNUStep-based Linux GUI written in Objective-C

#30

Post by throwawaykf03 »

rsynnott wrote: post #28
throwawaykf03 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dock patent is specifically on the dynamic resizing and repositioning of icons when moused over. A plain collection of icons won't infringe this patent. The second patent is a design patent, which means you'd have to have a menu exactly like that to infringe. Funnily enough, one of the icons in the figures in the first patent is for Internet Explorer. I think I also spied one for Word.

It's from 1999; at that time, Apple shipped IE.

Yep, just seems funny today.
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