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Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

etoileos.com

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Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#91

Post by int_19h »

roryirvine wrote: post #78
tombert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, did Gnome ever reign supreme? I feel like there was always a back and forth with Gnome and KDE?

I'd say that the momentum in the 1999-2001 timeframe was almost overwhelming, with a lot of buzz around the likes of Eazel and Helixcode, together with the excitement of Sun choosing it for Solaris. It was certainly enough to push GNUstep/Windowmaker and Enlightenment into "also-ran" territory. If Gnome 2 had come out a year before the dotcom crash rather than the year after, I think it probably would have definitive…

KDE was going equally strong at the time though. Anecdotally, it feels like more people were running KDE 2/3 around that time period than Gnome. And while Gnome did get an overall user count boost from becoming the "enterprise Linux DE", that same thing also turned off some people, with projects like Xfce getting a boost. So I wouldn't say it ever really "reign supreme".

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#92

Post by bogwog »

Man, I love GNUStep. I haven't done anything serious with it, but I did play around with it for a while and enjoyed every second. I event went all-in on WindowMaker for a couple of months lol. It really opened my eyes to how awesome Objective-C is as a language, and almost made me want to become an iOS/Mac developer.

Etoile is dead afaik, but there are some people making another GNUStep-based DE called Gershwin (https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop) for GhostBSD.

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#95

Post by apple4ever »

pjmlp wrote: post #12

GNUStep is a good example that the bare bones language and compiler being open source it is not enough, when everything else doesn't come along. Saying this as someone that used Afterstep and Windowmaker alongside GNUStep, and did seat a few times on the GNUStep room at FOSDEM. Last time I checked was at the level of OS X Panther, and modern Objective-C still wasn't supported.

It's also an example of how stubborn people can ruin a project. While it's nice to see the old NextStep GUI, it's from the 1990's. They never made any effort to improve. They never made any effort to integrate nicely into the rest of the Linux world. They never made any effort to add new Objective-C features.

Its entirely stagnated.

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#96

Post by apple4ever »

LeFantome wrote: post #23
linguae wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been periodically keeping up with GNUstep’s progress since 2004, when I first learned about it as a high school student brand new to Linux and Mac OS X (I grew up on Windows at home and on classic Macs in elementary school). I even wrote a report for a community college class on the history of Mac OS X. I’ve wanted to see GNUstep succeed, but unfortunately it never got as much attention as the KDE/Qt and GNOME/G…

Actually, GNUstep has always had an Interface Builder: https://www.gnustep.org/experience/Gorm.html My own take is actually that GNUstep spent too long trying to be an OpenStep successor instead of being a way to run Mac apps on Linux. It took them ages to even clarify if it was a desktop environment or an SDK (and I am not sure it is even clear now). There has never been a tonne of love for Objective C either. Prett…

> It took them ages to even clarify if it was a desktop environment or an SDK (and I am not sure it is even clear now).

Yes they still have no idea what they are trying to do.

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#97

Post by pabs3 »

pjmlp wrote: post #70
rollcat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone interested in trying NeXTStep, it's included on https://infinitemac.org/ >

I also advise reading through the manuals at https://www.nextop.de/ while they exist, or save local copies.

I have started an ArchiveBot job for this website, so the site and all the pages it links to will be on web.archive.org for future viewing. Should be up in a few days to a week.

https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#98

Post by tombert »

lelanthran wrote: post #76
tombert wrote: post #15

I have never played with GNUStep. By the time I actually started real work as a professional software person (2011) it was already kind of considered a joke, so I never bothered learning how to use it. It bothers me a bit, though. Developing for desktop Linux is still a pain in the ass, and I really wish the Linux community had agreed on One Desktop Framework To Rule Them All, and I think GNUStep could have been that…

> I have never played with GNUStep. By the time I actually started real work as a professional software person (2011) it was already kind of considered a joke, so I never bothered learning how to use it. I dunno if it was a joke or not, but I can confirm that I used Windowmaker as my daily driver from around 2004-ish to 2019-ish.[1] The only reason I switched, and did not switch back, is due wanting my virtual deskto…

You might like something like i3 (if using X) or Sway (if using Wayland), or another tiling manager like Xmonad.

They are extremely minimal and really get out of your way. I had to write my own service to power the info on the Sway bar [1] because the entire thing is so minimal.

For me, I have title bars in windows disabled, and the gap between different windows is literally 1 pixel.

[1] First version: https://github.com/tombert/swanbar Rust rewrite: https://github.com/tombert/rs-swanbar

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#99

Post by fithisux »

pjmlp wrote: post #84
fithisux wrote: post #16

GNUStep lost its opportunity to use D to go further and stuck with old ObjC. Very good piece of software though.

Unfortunately D is still trying to find out what is the killer application that would push for industry's adoption. Also D semantics have nothing to do with something that builds out OpenSTEP.

OpenStep is a Desktop environment. What D has to do with it?

Re: Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStep

#100

Post by pjmlp »

fithisux wrote: post #99
pjmlp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately D is still trying to find out what is the killer application that would push for industry's adoption. Also D semantics have nothing to do with something that builds out OpenSTEP.

OpenStep is a Desktop environment. What D has to do with it?

Not understanding why that is relevant for GNUStep and their use of Objective-C makes all the difference.
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