Just got NeXTSTEP 3.3 running on VMware

Just noting that this is the system the iD made DOOM on. Wish I had DoomEd to run on this thing. I'm gonna try out the NeXT DOOM though ;)

Not quite. If you're running it on VMware, you're running the Intel/x86 version of NeXTSTEP (is it OpenStep you're running?). As noted here, Id used NeXTstations and a NeXTcube to do their development, which had 68000-based CPUs. So it's not completely the same.

NeXTStep 3.3 is from 1995 and did indeed have an x86 version. It's newer than whatever version they used to develop DOOM of course.

My dad used to have a NeXTStation in his office. He and his colleagues loved the things. The younger guys working there also had Friday DOOM games on the LAN.

I haven't used NeXTSTEP proper, but a few years ago I used WindowMaker and a few GNUSTEP applications on my desktop. Going from that experience, it actually is a fairly nice user interface... I just think it's a shame that GNUSTEP hasn't really taken off as a major desktop environment and you'd probably be running plenty of applications (like Firefox, as a quick example) with UIs not at all like GNUSTEP, which just feels inconsistent and awkward. For a long time, GNUSTEP wasn't themable and was basically stuck with the 1990-ish look baked right into that; more modern themes can make it look like Mac OS X or something different from even that, but it might be too late to save its chances at being a major DE...

I'm really unsure about GNUstep. Every time I've used it it has just seemed terrible, but I don't know if that's because it's accurately emulating NeXTstep or because it's so different in design to other programs that it clashes horribly on a typical Linux desktop. I get the feeling both are probably true to some extent. I really dislike the way that menus work, for example, and when you place GNUstep programs with menus like that alongside all the other "normal" Linux programs that don't behave that way, the GNUstep programs stick out like an ugly wart.

As a programmer I can admire the project for what it's achieved, implementing the complete OpenStep standard. But I really wish they'd just ditch the whole plan of trying to develop a desktop environment that, realistically, nobody really wants. I wrote a bit about this a couple of years ago.

Linux desktop environment = pure chaos, any toolkit, any library, any language. Some write in pure Xlib, while others cobble together C++/Tcl/Tk frankenstein apps. Athena widgets coexist next to the latest KDE build. One dude has a bare-bones 10-line .twmrc, while another themes out Gnome To The Max! The crazee old man down the street runs TinyX without any window manager, just so he can use the Moaning Goat Meter and a single Xterm with Screen on his 486.

Meh, It's true. I use KDE on Ubuntu, and alot of apps that I use require GTK, such as VMware, and it kinda sticks out. Honestly most of Linux software is a mess. Alsa/OSS KDE/GNOME etc. And NeXTSTEP really is quite like GNUStep, it just sticks out to far and it's far too different from usual windowing environments that many people don't like it

hex11 said:

Linux desktop environment = pure chaos, any toolkit, any library, any language. Some write in pure Xlib, while others cobble together C++/Tcl/Tk frankenstein apps. Athena widgets coexist next to the latest KDE build. One dude has a bare-bones 10-line .twmrc, while another themes out Gnome To The Max! The crazee old man down the street runs TinyX without any window manager, just so he can use the Moaning Goat Meter and a single Xterm with Screen on his 486.

This used to be more of a problem, but I don't think it's really a huge problem nowadays because almost everything now uses Gtk+ or Qt. Obviously there are programs that use other toolkits but I can't think of many. Plus, compared to Windows, it doesn't seem so bad.

I think the Windows screenshot is more damning for the fact that every single piece of software featured there is made by Microsoft. (PuTTY and TextPad are in the task bar but not visible.)

Quite honestly, the whole "Linux = chaotic, inconsistent desktop" idea is obsolete. For a large part, people don't vary too much outside of their DE's "native" toolkit, which is bound to be either GTK+ (GNOME, Xfce) or Qt (KDE), and if you do run programs using the "other" toolkit, they behave largely the same and even include theme compatibility to make the difference even harder to tell. I run a couple Qt applications on my GNOME desktop, but Qt includes the ability to use GTK+ themes so when I run VirtualBox (for example), it's almost impossible to notice that it's not just another GTK+ application.

I don't actually consider the chaos to be a problem. :)

It used to bother me once upon a time. Not when I first started with Linux, because then (1995) the desktops were all very strange, so it seemed normal. But a couple years later I started playing around with Afterstep & WindowMaker and tried to make nice themes and pretend my machine was a NeXT box, which of course didn't work so well. At the time I also investigated KDE but found it too bloated for my taste, even on a 32 MB p120 (pretty decent hardware back then). Then I got tired of all that and started using small window managers like Blackbox & Fluxbox, and even weirder stuff, only to eventually return where I had started (twm).

Ironically, for me it is actually the Gtk apps that stand out and feel strange, because most other things are Athena (esp. xterm and other stuff in OpenBSD base), straight Xlib (a lot more than you might expect), SDL (games and emulators) and Tk (my first choice for coding, since it's quick and easy). Whenever possible I disable the menubar on Gtk programs (ex: comix) so the toolkit ends up fading into the background anyway.