One Step to GNUstep

On this site, you will find a ready-to-use GNUstep development environment. It comprises a collection of GNUstep applications and standard development tools. Simply import it into a virtualisation system, such as VirtualBox, VMware Player or KVM, and start developing!

Copyright

This compilation of programs is

copyright © 2011 Richard Stonehouse.

It comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.

For details, please see the page: Licences for This Software.

How To Get It

The development environment is packaged as a downloadable, Open Virtualisation Format (OVF) Virtual Machine (VM).

The method of importing it to your system depends on the virtualisation software you use. Here are instructions for:

• VirtualBox — user-friendly; for Windows, Macintosh and Linux; fairly demanding of hardware resources.
• VMware Player — a good technical solution; for Windows and Linux; can run acceptably in a smaller machine.
• KVM — command-line based; for Linux only; requires hardware virtualisation features.

It should work with other systems, provided they have a route for importing OVF. If you try it successfully (or otherwise!) on another system, please let me know.

Logging On to the System

Select the GNUstep VM in your virtualisation software and start it up. It will run as a guest system on your actual computer or host system. It will use a window on the host system as its virtual screen.

You will see a boot menu with the normal GNUstep entry selected.

Just let it boot the normal system. The alternative failsafe system is for emergency use. The Boot: field at bottom left is for use where you want to append options to the kernel command line. Pressing the Esc key gets you into a non-graphical boot with advanced facilities.

System initialisation may take a little time, especially on the first boot because there is some setting-up to do. During the first boot, you will see the system initialisation messages — these will include a failure message for vmtoolsd (if you run VirtualBox) or vboxadd (if you run VMware); do not worry, these are expected. The initialisation messages will be hidden on subsequent boots unless you press Esc to enable them.

After the guest system has come up, you will see a login screen:

Login as:

    Developer (password GNUstep)

When you have logged in, you will see the GWorkspace desktop with application icons for the GNUstep graphical applications:

These include the development tools:

• ProjectCenter — GNUstep's Integrated Development Environment and
• Gorm — GNUstep's User Interface designer.

You can experiment with these, or you may prefer to follow the tutorial at:

    http://www.gnustep.org/experience/PierresDevTutorial/index.html

The GNUstep applications are backed up by the build tools, compilers and diagnostic aids for C, C++ and Objective-C that you would expect to find in a serious development environment. Technical documentation, for both Developers and Users, is also available.

Tips and Tricks for Using your Virtual Machine

Experienced VM users can probably ignore or skim this section.

Virtualisation systems provide facilities that help you co-ordinate your work across the guest and host machines. Among other things, you can:

• change the size of your desktop — if you find the initial desktop too cramped;
• interchange data between your host and guest systems by using shared folders;
• cut, copy and paste data between programs running on guest and host machines;
• access your network to download and upload software using FTP, or send and receive mail using GNUMail;
• play sounds from the guest system through your normal headphones or speakers;
• monitor and control the operation of the virtualisation software (VMware only);
• configure and administer your guest system, just like any normal Linux system; and
• install additional software on your guest system.

Ending Your Session

In the GWorkspace menu (click the screen background, if need be, to make this appear) choose:

    Logout

The GWorkspace desktop will be replaced by a blue background. Click on this background to obtain the WindowMaker menu. In this menu, choose:

    Exit

to bring up a sub-menu and, in this sub-menu, choose one of:

• Restart to return to the GWorkspace desktop;
• Logout to log out the current user — this will take you to the login screen so you can log back in as a different user;
• Reboot to reboot the guest system; or
• Close down to close down the guest system.

Richard Stonehouse
<richard@rstonehouse.co.uk>