OpenStep, GNUstep Archive

So a few years ago, a Ukrainian programmer called Sergii Stoian started to build a modern Linux desktop environment based around the GNUstep components running on top of CentOS Linux, which he called NEXTSPACE. Sadly, development stalled a couple of years ago, before CentOS Linux’ premature end-of-life. We are happy to report that Stoian is alive and well, but what with his country being invaded and so on, he’s been a bit too busy to work on his project in recent years. This is where Ondrej Florian, also known as OnFlApp, comes in. Florian has put together a collection of GNUstep components, including some drawn from NEXTSPACE, to create the GNUstep Desktop Environment. For now, the project’s contains scripts to build it and install it, but only on Debian, although Debian versions 9, 10 and 11 are included. We tried on Debian 11.7 “Bullseye”, and in a VM, it works perfectly. The process is manual, but not too labour-intensive: install Git, clone the repo, then run three scripts. So, at this stage, GSDE is not very beginner friendly, but it’s a substantial improvement over manually finding, installing or compiling, and configuring the various bits of the GNUstep system which are already in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories. The end result is better integrated, more complete, and even includes a working web browser – although you’ll need to install the Chromium browser yourself, in order for the GSDE web browser to call it and work. A GNUstep-based desktop has exited in the periphery of the Linux world for decades, but it’s always been incomplete, buggy, abandoned, or simply unusable. I really hope that this time around, that might change, because it would be a welcome change from all the QT and GTK-based desktop.

After almost 8 years (we talked about it, of course), a new version of the GNUSTEP live CD has been released - version 2.5, for amd64. The live CD is based on Debian 9, has low hardware requirements, and uses Linux 4.9 with compressed RAM and no systemd. The live CD is a very easy and non-destructive way of testing out and playing with GNUSTEP, a free software implementation of OPENSTEP.

It's been a long, long time since I got to use our glorious *STEP database category. Isn't that one beautiful icon?

"A little over one year after the 1.0 release, I'm happy to announce the 1.6 release of the GNUstep Objective-C runtime. This provides a superset of the functionality of Apple's Mac OS X 10.7/iOS 5 runtimes and provides a solid foundation for Objective-C and Objective-C++ development on Free Software platforms."

I don't really know what Sony wants with this, but they're using GNUstep, so that's something, I guess. "Sony's Networked Application Platform is a project designed to leverage the open source community to build and evolve the next generation application framework for consumer electronic devices. The developer program gives access to a developer community and resources like SDK, tools, documentation and other developers. The foundation upon which this project is base comes from the GNUstep community, whose origin dates back to the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT Computer Inc (now Apple Computer Inc.). While Apple has continued to update their specification in the form of Cocoa and Mac OS X, the GNUstep branch of the tree has diverged considerably."

And yet another release of the GNUstep live CD, version 1.8 this time. "GNUstep (this is a live CD, an operating system, a distribution) contains a lot of software for GNUstep, a free implementation of the OPENSTEP framework (which was also the base as Cocoa in Mac OS X)."

The releases just keep on coming, don't they? The GNUstep live CD has been updated "The GNUstep live CD contains a lot of software for GNUstep, a free implementation of the OPENSTEP framework (which was also the base as Cocoa in Mac OS X)." The GNUstep page can tell you more about GNUstep itself.

"Since the last post, a lot of people have asked me 'why are you doing this? What advantage does it actually give?' In this post, I'll try to explain."

"The Etoile project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.2 of the Etoile User Environment for UNIX-like systems. The Etoile project aims to produce a user environment for desktop and small form-factor devices, with tight integration between components. The 0.2 release is primarily targeted at developers interested in a GNUstep-based environment. This release includes improvements to the Camaelon theme engine, providing a clean and modern appearance to GNUstep-based applications. This is combined with the Etoile Menu Server, providing a horizontal menu bar similar to that found in Mac OS, and making this the first Etoile release with enough features in place to be usable on a daily basis." There are screenshots too.

The Etoile project has released a release candiate for the 0.2 version of their live CD. "The Etoile project aims to produce a document-centric desktop and post-desktop environment. The project is built on top of GNUstep, a high-quality Free Software implementation of the OpenStep specification from Sun and NeXT and popularised by Apple as Cocoa."

The Etoile team has published a progress update on the project. They are currently preparing the release of version 0.2 of the Etoile live CD, but on top of that, they are also busy developing new applications. A font manager, an alt+tab application switcher, hot corners, and more. "'Etoilé intends to be an innovative GNUstep based user environnement built from the ground up on highly modular and light components with project and document orientation in mind."

Gorm 1.2.1 has been released. "Gorm (Graphical Object Relationship Modeller) is meant to be the counter part to NeXT's Interface Builder. With Gorm designing tough and complex graphical interfaces for your applications can easy and quickly be done using drag & drop, powerful inspectors and teamwork with ProjectCenter."

The developers behind Etoile have discussed their future plans for the project recently, and have provided a summary of the discussion on the mailing list. The Etoile live CD project will be transferred from Nicolas (due to a lack of time) to Quentin; he says: "I will recreate an environment for building the LiveCD from scratch (will now be built on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn LiveCD). To help in this process, Nicolas sent me the current LiveCD scripts. I hope to succeed in two or three weeks." On Etoile itself: "Focus will be put on core elements like System, MenuServer, Azalea, AZDock etc. rather than polished applications for this release. We don't have enough manpower for now and it's better to have a stable foundation to begin with." The next release is now planned for the coming three weeks.

On the Etoile news blog, Quentin has posted an installation guide for the Etoile desktop environment. "Here are some quick instructions to build and install EtoileFirst you need to build and install latest GNUstep svn version (not the latest release), then you can build and install Etoile svn version too."

"Once again FOSDEM is over and was a great success for GNUstep. Attendance by GNUstep developers/users was, if anything, even better than last year, and the combined GNUstep/OpenGroupware booth was well attended and looked very good with a selection of leaflets to give away, books to show NeXT and Cocoa relationships, and T-shirts for sale."