GNUstep Live CD

There are several efforts to create Live CDs of GNUstep

GNUSTEP Live CD

of Gürkan Sengün, Version 1.0 released on November 6, 2006

Notes

I think a lot of the bugs listed bellow are caused by GNUstep and WindowMaker, and not the LiveCD itself. The reason I say this is because I experience some of these issues with my GNUstep installation, and most times I build it from scratch from SVN or stable releases.

Bugs

• Some Apps can't be started from GWorkspace, instead openapp <MyApplication> is required

Which?

Cynthiune.app, DBModeler.app, Gorm.app, Lynkeos.app, ProjectCenter.app, Scheme.app, UL.app

Can you start them by commandline or the Window Maker menu? Why can they not be started by GWorkspace?

• Some windows (for instance in DBModeler.app) can't be accessed since the title bar is off-screen (a seasoned GNUstepper knows how to fix this but what about the newbies?) (This happens with most GNUstep apps, and should be fixed in GNUstep/Gorm)
• most dock icons show a generic icon at startup and reveal their true nature not before starting the associated application

Yes this was my fault due to the WMState file of Window Maker is different when it's running or not (pretty sucky, but it's like that).

• Some menus behave oddly

Is this related to GNUstep? Window Maker? Or the versions of them on the CD? This happens a lot more when I have GWorkspace running (which I avoid for this and several other bugs)

This is a GNUstep issue! Happens to me all the time, specially if the application is opened by GWorkspace, which has a while bunch of problems when handling applications (not sure how much of it is due to WindowMaker and how much is GWorkspace's fault).

File:Menu-bug.png

• Sometimes a PS/2 mouse isn't recognized (differs from boot time to boot time on the same hardware)
• Some Apps have obvious bugs:
  • Cenon: on startup: "NSRangeException Index 0 is out of range 0 (in 'objectAtIndex:')"

I know about this bug, any patches are welcome to fix this.

• • DBModeler: Inspector Window is off-screen (the titlebar)

I actually think this is fairly normal with GNUstep applications (at least it happens to me all the time). With most WM all you have to do is press ALT with the mouse inside the window to move it.

Bugs reported by Fred Kiefer:

• It took a long time to start up, during this it tried to get a network connection via DHCP and also prepared the nfonts. I think the first should be switched off and the fonts preprepared.

Your computer is very slow? Run a DHCP server in the network? Hm yeah maybe the preparation is a good idea, wonder how...

• There were no names on the dock icons, making it hard to realize what they were standing for.

I can fix that, exit Window Maker, and it writes different WMState

• The fonts didn't display white space.

Can you provide a screenshot for this? I can not reproduce this.

• There were no colour schemas predefined.

Can you provide the schemas and tell where they get on the filesystem?

There's some under the Modules/ColorSchemes directory of SystemPreferences in svn. I'm not 100% sure, but I think they go under $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Library/Colors.

Is it possible that these are not installed? Where should I find those if I have /usr/lib/GNUstep as GNUstep root?

As far as I know, there's no SystemPreferences package under Debian, which might be why you can't find it. For some reason Debian packages Preferences (the Backbone program) and not SystemPreferences (the GNUstep program). SystemPreferences seems to do a little more than Preferences as it's development is active, and I'm not sure if Backbone is. In my opinion, the only Backbone program worth using is Terminal.app, because Ink can replace TextEdit and SystemPreferences can replace Preferences.

I really like the tool "open". TextEdit has several features more that Ink doesn't have. Does Ink handle RTFD, Font ligatures and kerning, Preferences?

Feature Requests

• it should be obvious how to install GNUstep on HD from within the Live CD (ideally by employing a GUI based wizard)

I've got a text file on how to do it, what about you write an installer?

Can you mail me that file? How much is the effort needed to build such an installer (roundabout)?

Feel free to put it up on a server some where, cause I'd be interested too! If the procedures aren't too intensive, it could probably be done by FOSDEM with sh scripts.

The file is online and linked to from http://livecd.gnustep.org/ at the Installing part: http://www.linuks.mine.nu/gnustep/install.txt (the only quirk is the CD doesn't have rsync, so apt-get install rsync before you run any of the rsync commands)

Well, rsync isn't really needed... in my opinion, cp will suffice.