yet another Linux-only WM?

SirDice said:
Neither GTK nor QT have anything to do with this "Linux-only" stuff.

In case of Gnome it's the (proposed) dependency on systemd that would make Gnome Linux-only, not it's use of GTK.

GTK is complete & written in C. I think it's a good choice.
 
UNIXgod said:
I would like to start a discussion to paint the bikeshed red. This is in accordance with the FreeBSD color scheme and matches McKusick's BSD Daemon.

Please refer to the signature of the forum bikeshed painter, @SirDice.
 
cuq said:
I love FreeBSD and it is sad when people talks in that way about the things you love the most...
There's an entry in the C Infrequently Asked Questions list that goes roughly as follows:
Q: Somebody told me that arrays are only just constant pointers.
A: Cool. Somebody I know says he saw Elvis in a local bar.
The annotation to that questions reads: Some people will say anything.

Fonz ('nuff said)
 
9088733.jpg

9087974.jpg
 
After reading this post and that one, I dont figure out a short term solution about linux desktops in FreeBSD.

I come from Windows as a fw/sw developer and user for many years and never liked linux, I don't want to talk about this anyway. Not many years ago I installed some linux systems to take a look and finally come to FreeBSD, an OS with a more serious background (as DutchDaemon explained in the other thread).

I don't have enough knowledge about X windows to talk about it, but as stated on http://www.x.org/wiki/XorgHAL the support for HAL will be stopped on future releases in favor of udev. Someone suggested to make a proprietary desktop, but this problem is not about a desktop, it's about the whole graphic environment. All the existing desktop environments are based on the X window system, avoiding udev means reimplement the graphic environment. I think the less painful solution is to implement a BSD's devd plug-in for X windows system with the same udev APIs (or something alike). The best should be a common API not related with the base drivers, but this is a matter of xorg folks

Code:
                   --- HAL --------
                  /                \
X Windows IO -->  ---- udev --------  --> X Windows common IO APIs
                  \                /      (for desktops' developers)
                   --- BSD devd ---

FreeBSD is capable of such architecture, most non-FreeBSD components (3rd party software, plugins, drivers or what the proper name is) aren't, but as I said, my knowledge about unix-like OSs is very limited.
 
Why hasn't Etoile taken off? BSD userland plus objective-c/*step based environment is a good thing. Just ask Apple.

I use a Mac for my desktop stuff and would really love to finally see a decent continuation of NextStep on FreeBSD (or anywhere for that matter).
 
The enormous number of people is necessary for working out WM (especially from zero) and resources that at FreeBSD project isn't present. I think, now it is a time for WEB/HTML5-based WM. Thank God, there are we still have a little of graphics card and a few of browsers
 
X Cross posting from another thread -

Few months ago I did put together a complete desktop based on Qt. Only the Qt GUI module to keep it really streamlined with Opera as the browser.

Being a developer helps. The Qt documentation and examples (they are BSD licensed; except a few) sufficient to put together most apps. I had to get some applications from Qt-Apps. Reasonably good outcome.

I'm really waiting to see as how the Wayland story pans out for FreeBSD. If it happens I expect that the Qt Wayland port for FreeBSD might follow.

However if there are volunteers to put togather a FreeBSD only desktop based on Qt, I'd like to revive my project.
 
rockworldmi said:
SR_Ind: give me a link. I think making GUI in c/C# will be better.

Hi you cannnot do so in C/C#.

The most obvious C toolkit is GTK+. The API is weird and different libraries are thrown togather to just "make it work". It works, but development effort required is too much.

Regarding C#, you'd require Mono. Many people would not like that extra layer running on their systems, beside that the legal status of Winforms on *NIX's is bit muddied.

I don't have a link yet, as it was a personal project. I'd post the details later in this thread.
 
rockworldmi said:
SR_Ind : i found this two links might interest you ..http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/index.html , http://wiki.tcl.tk/1928
Thanks, professionally I've done some projects (mid-sized) with TCL/TK way back in 2002/2003. It could be a rapid development tool, but maintenance is an issue if you don't find too many people willing to work with it. In fact in the place where I work, we did a very costly port to Qt/C++ due to the fact that we were not coming across developers to maintain those applications. But, I think its good enough for lightweight tools aimed at a desktop.
 
SR_Ind said:
... Gtk... different libraries are thrown togather to just "make it work"...

I agree. Though this is the very definition of Linux... I would expect nothing different from their GUI toolkit ;)
 
SR_Ind : I agree the Dev. in tcl/tk is very slow but they are really pacing up the speed with really cool and new features..but you are right probably i don't have much experience in tcl/tk. But creating D.E. in qt/C++ would be GPL. so it would be better to keep it BSD other wise what's the point? it should go along witg Clang or probably PCC. As they are going to be in FreeBSD base for replacement of GCC. Thanks.
 
Qt/C++ based S/W entails LGPL, so it is bit more relaxed as compared to full blown GPL.

There are BSD licensed C++ toolkits for GUI development. I think the libraries of Enlightenment project are BSD licensed and so is Ultimate++. Both provides widget toolkit for X11 targeted apps.

But you have to work with them once to realize whether it is feasible to base them for long term development or not. Ultimate++ is weird to say the least (confusing nomenclature...the IDE provided along will confuse you even further). Enlightenment widgets looks strange...to me they look ugly, or maybe its a theming issue.

The reasons I look towards Qt/C++ are (1)One single tool for pro and hobby programming (2) Precise and usefull examples - basic desktop apps can be built from these (3) Mindshare (4) Good IDE
 
rockworldmi said:
Well I agree with you on that. I found another useful link it looks promising. and already working with current FreeBSD 9 and clang. I don't have time to test it myself but you can look at it.

http://etoileos.com/etoile/

definitely promising... includes the terms "BSD" "OSX" "llvm" in distinct locations.
 
achix said:
definitely promising... includes the terms "BSD" "OSX" "llvm" in distinct locations.
Have heard it for a long time, yet not sure if it's still under heavy development.
 
The Etoile web page does appear to have recent updates.

I'm super keen to see a decent Nextstep-ish UI with some level of compatibility with the OS X user space on FreeBSD.

I've recently converted to Mac for my desktop machines, have always liked xSTEP, and I think it's an ideal fit for the free desktop.

Gnome and KDE have both certainly lost the plot and gone off trying to reinvent the wheel in a NIH, incompatible with the rest of the world way.

Being even somewhat source compatible with Apple/Cocoa for desktop apps would be a massive win.

If a commercial (hell, even Freeware-on-apple) developer is going to need to do massive re-writes to support Gnome/KDE, guess what isn't going to happen? :D
 
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