GNUstep - ahead of its time

What is GNUstep?
GNUstep is the Free Software Foundation’s effort to implement NeXT Software Inc.’s (now Apple Inc.) OpenStep Standard.  NeXT Computer Inc, and Sun Microsystems Inc. teamed up in late 1993 to push a free object layer API based on the NeXTSTEP object system. This agreement evolved into the OpenStep specification which was published by NeXT in a first draft back in summer 1994.

OpenStep is an Application Programming Interface (API) for creating applications using the Objective C language. It was published by NeXT Computer Inc. in 1994. OpenStep consists of three parts: the FoundationKit, a library of non-graphical objects; the AppKit, a library of objects useful in creating graphical applications; and Display Postscript, an interface for drawing to the screen using the PostScript graphics language.

What is Free Software?
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
*	The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
*	The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
	Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
*	The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
*	The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that
	the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.

The freedom to use a program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job, and without being required to communicate subsequently with the developer or any other specific entity.

General shortcuts for Applications based on GNUstep
meta-?	Help
meta-a	Select all
meta-c	Copy
meta-h	Hide
meta-v	Paste
meta-n	New
meta-o	Open
meta-p	Print
meta-q	Quit
meta-s	Save
meta-S	Save as
meta-w	Close
meta-x	Cut

Installation
You can run sudo su then morphixinstaller to install GNUstep

Configuring your network
Edit /etc/network/interfaces
hostname machinename
Edit /etc/hosts

Having a clean Debian GNU/Linux "sid" System
telnet linuks.mine.nu 2>/dev/null | grep deb > sources.list
Your /etc/apt/sources.list should look like this now:
deb ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free contrib
deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sid/non-US main contrib non-free
deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sid/non-US main contrib non-free
deb-src http://www.linuks.mine.nu/debian/ ./
apt-get update
rm -rf /morphix
mv /etc/rc2.d/S99xsession /etc/rd2.d/s99xsession

Configuring your keyboard under X
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

Configuring your locales
Edit /etc/locale.gen and run locale-gen
or use dpkg-reconfigure locales

Setting the time
apt-get install rdate
rdate time.ethz.ch
hwclock --systohc

Drivers
Should you later remove or add hardware components, you can load
and remove drivers in /etc/modules or just run modconf as root

Configuring System
Enabling DMA for IDE harddisks using hdparm

Updating the kernel
apt-cache search kernel-image
apt-get install kernel-image

Enabling an SSH server
dpkg-reconfigure ssh

Enable shadowed passwords
shadowconfig on

Language support
If you feel like adding support for your own language, please do so. You can find more information about this at http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Translations

Changing the background picture
Copy your favourite background picture to /usr/share/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/ then select it by the Window Maker menu "Workspace, Appearance, Background, Images, Scaled"

Configuring a printer
apt-get install cupsys cupsys-client cupsys-bsd then open http://localhost:631/admin

Setting up mail encryption
As user generate a PGP keypair
gpg --gen-key
gpg --list-keys
gpg --export -a > $HOME/pubkey.asc
gpg --import < otherpeopleskey.asc
gpg --send-key --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net person

Compiling Debian source packages
apt-get install debhelper dh-make devscripts fakeroot
apt-get build-dep mknfonts
apt-get source -b mknfonts
dpkg -i mknfonts*.deb

Thank you for choosing this excellent software
G¸rkan Seng¸n

Important Links
GNUstep		http://www.gnustep.org/
GNU			http://www.gnu.org/
Debian		http://www.debian.org/
Bug Tracking http://bugs.debian.org/
Packages	http://packages.debian.org/
OpenStep	http://www.gnustep.org/resources/OpenStepSpec/OpenStepSpec.html