GNUstep Live CD

There are several efforts to create Live CDs of GNUstep

GNUSTEP Live CD

of Gürkan Sengün, Version 1.6 released on April 4, 2008

Notes

I think a lot of the bugs listed below are caused by GNUstep and WindowMaker, and not the Live CD 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)
• 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)

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 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 at the Installing as install.txt