[Mentalunix-developers] Re: Yozilla/GNUStep/VBScript/rants [Yahoo! Clubs: mentalunix]

[CoolProgrammer <coo...@ya...>]

I believe the installer should have an automatic
upgrade mode as well (I don't know if that's what you
were getting at). It should even be able to upgrade
the basic level packages without being too hard on the
user (we were making this easy to use, right?).
Slackware almost solves this by having the installer
load itself into a ramdisk with the files it needs to
run (so you can use it to upgrade any packages), but
it's still a manual procedure--deleting old and
installing new packages one-by-one.

~CoolProgrammer

>
> Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 07:47:58 -0700
> To: men...@li...
> From: Mentalspice <clu...@ya...>
> Reply-To: clu...@ya...
> Subject: [Mentalunix-developers] Re:
> Yozilla/GNUStep/VBScript/rants [Yahoo! Clubs:
> mentalunix]
> Reply-To:
> men...@li...
>
> GNUStep is an applications framework, just like
> Openstep. When it is finished, it is supposed to
> allow programs(that don't use any x86-dependent
> stuff) to work on all version of linux(with the
> GNUStep framworks), MacOS X, NeXT(yes, those nice
> little cubes from the 80's), or and anything with
> YellowBox(apple will stop selling yellow box runtime
> liscences in september...it's a shame they canceled
> all fo their NeXT support). Right now they have a
> working version of display ghostscript(well,
> postscript costs $$, and is non-free, but
> ghostscript is free, so they are using that). The
> interface builder is decent(but very unstable), and
> it's a generally good framework. I'm running a
> CD-Ripper that uses GNUStep. The nice thing about
> GNUStep is that you write once(using the GNUStep
> frameworks), and it _should_ compile on all the
> platforms GNUStep runs on(it semi-works on win32
> with cygwin...but who needs windows programs
> anyway!). You can get lots more information from the
> GNUStep site(!
>  http://www.GNUStep.org ). Also, GNUStep apps just
> run better when you use windowmaker(you get extra
> featurers...possibly because windowmaker is the
> "official" GNUStep window manager)
>
> On the installer:
> I had a crazy idea: why not make it display
> agnostic? Just write a back-end that featured a
> simple, easy to use graphics API(draw button, load
> picture, etc)? Then, the back-end would do the real
> work! Just have the back-end in Gtk+ mode(or use a
> back-end module) and you have graphics! If you can't
> support graphics mode, then have it use ncurses(or
> its own console GUI toolkit)! It owuld make life
> much, much easier. And, how about having the
> installer modules be little XML files that defined
> the interface, and then ran either javascript-like
> programs, or just regular programs when an action
> happened? It's the easiest(IMHO) and best solution
> to the problem of making a universal installer. And
> why not add in a feature to upgrade other
> distros?(it coudl read hte packages.log most of them
> have, or it could query the rpm database, or even
> have a list of known programs and locations, and
> look for them)

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