Recent posts

#71

Hardware / NeXTSTEP on PA-RISC | openpa.n...

Last post by marvin - Jan 05, 2026, 09:20 AM

Nice article about the green NeXTs:

https://www.openpa.net/nextstep_pa-risc.html

NeXTSTEP is a Unix operating system developed in the 1980s and 90s by NeXT, based on a Mach microkernel with an advanced graphical user interface. NeXTSTEP supports several 32-bit HP 9000 PA-RISC workstations in release 3.3 from 1994, for which HP and NeXT had high hopes. This was an effort to open up the NeXT operating system to other hardware platforms after NeXT stopped designing its own custom NeXT computers.

#72

Software / Re: List of current open-sourc...

Last post by wmlive - Jan 04, 2026, 02:50 PM

Gershwin is a GNUstep distribution aimed at reproducing the OS X experience. The project is not very far along compared to wmlive or GSDE, but it has live discs based on Debian, Arch, and GhostBSD.

Gershwin is indeed a very nice project and a true GNUstep distribution. For people interested in what GNUstep actually is about, despite its current lack of applications, it is a much better choice then wmlive. Especially laudable about it is that they completely do away with the traditional/retro NeXTSTEP looks and assume much more appropriate modern aesthetics.

Unlike Gerswhin, GS-Desktop, or NeXTSPACE, wmlive never was, nor intents to be, a GNUstep distribution, but rather an opinioned Debian Linux variant with Window Maker as its default GUI. While it does include a large range of GNUstep applications, these are by no means the primary focus of the distribution, and are primarily included to give GNUstep more visibility. In fact, wmlive would be perfectly usable without any single GNUstep component.
Furthermore, the Debian based GNUstep packages included in wmlive have a very serious downside, which is that they do not (yet) support libobjc2 and ARC, which currently makes them rather useless for software developers aiming for source compatibility with modern Mac OS. There are plans by the Debian GNUstep maintainers to change that, but it won't become the default until the next offical Debian release in two years...

#73

Software / Re: List of current open-sourc...

Last post by Rhetorica - Jan 04, 2026, 02:18 PM

I've found another thing for this thread, sort of: Gershwin is a GNUstep distribution aimed at reproducing the OS X experience. The project is not very far along compared to wmlive or GSDE, but it has live discs based on Debian, Arch, and GhostBSD. It's like they're trying to nerdsnipe @jeffburg. I think it needs a branded port of MathEdit.

#74

Virtualization / Starter Kit for OPENSTEP 4.2 o...

Last post by Rhetorica - Jan 02, 2026, 02:12 PM

VBoxOS42.iso.gz

Isn't it a shame how there are no Guest Additions CDs for NEXTSTEP VMs? It's almost like those eggheads at VMware and VirtualBox don't know how pioneering NeXT was in the home computer virtualization market! _{(also, RIP VMware)}

Well, last Spring I set out to put together precisely such a thing—every sanity-check and creature comfort that was essential to getting a new OS4.2 VM set up. The project went on the back burner for a while and I ended up quietly putting it on the INDeX CD-ROM archive in July, but certain events interrupted formally announcing it. (Really, a good thing—writing up that thread in full detail would have been a lot of wasted keystrokes.)

Attached below is the tutorial, and linked above is the actual CD image. It's in Rock Ridge format, built with a NeXT version of mkisofs, and hence has all the niceties that you wouldn't expect from a modern ISO, like a directory icon. The tutorial is written to be accessible for NeXT newbies but contains useful information that even veterans will appreciate, and may be of some use when setting up any NeXT machine, even real hardware, as it includes steps like updating the timezone info and configuring networking.

Also available are the BIOS images, which the tutorial mentions. Now your white-hardware guest doesn't have to puke that hideous red Oracle logo at you during boot-up. It's a miracle!

For a non-forum-bound permanent link to these files, see http://index.nextcommunity.net/cdrom/OS/4.2/vbox/

#75

Virtualization / Re: What Needs to be done for ...

Last post by Rhetorica - Jan 02, 2026, 01:51 PM

Thank you for updating the page! I have now changed the link on sourceforge to point to the NeXTcommunity subdomain for Previous.

Excellent! Here's hoping we'll no longer have to contend with YouTubers and others getting the darn site wrong!

The previous packages at wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/pool/main/p/previous/ have been updated to its current 4.0-r1747 version.
The builds are based on libsdl3 version 3.2.10 as offered in Debian/Trixie, which is the target release these packages have been built for.
As usual, packages for i386, amd64, and arm64 have been provided.

There will be no further builds for Debian/Bookworm, as it doesn't include any libsdl3 support packages.

I've put these builds up on previous.nextcommunity.net and moved the 3.9 packages to the legacy builds section, marked as "Linux SDL2 (.deb)"—I'm guessing that's enough information to get the target platform across to visitors, but let me know if it needs more qualifiers.

#76

Virtualization / Re: What Needs to be done for ...

Last post by wmlive - Jan 02, 2026, 10:09 AM

The previous packages at wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/pool/main/p/previous/ have been updated to its current 4.0-r1747 version.
The builds are based on libsdl3 version 3.2.10 as offered in Debian/Trixie, which is the target release these packages have been built for.
As usual, packages for i386, amd64, and arm64 have been provided.

There will be no further builds for Debian/Bookworm, as it doesn't include any libsdl3 support packages.

#77

Virtualization / Re: What Needs to be done for ...

Last post by andreas_g - Jan 02, 2026, 08:58 AM

I just built the trunk and ran into a minor issue. The build (on linux) fails on dns.c but suggests the fix: adding #include <ctype.h> after #include "ctl.h". This fixed the build for me.

Thank you for reporting! This should be fixed now.

Speaking of ditool, would it be possible to add support for Rhapsody (and maybe OS X Server 1.x images)?

I just checked a Rhapsody disk image. It seems to have the same disk label as NeXTstep, but uses the BSD4.4 variant of UFS instead of BSD4.3, which is used by NeXTstep. Those two different variants are incompatible. Therefore it would be necessary to re-write the core of ditool (which was not created by me). I'm afraid this is a bit beyond my capabilities.

A while ago you said you'd gotten full control at last over the Sourceforge repo. Is it possible to get the "Previous Web Site" link on https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/ updated to point to the nextcommunity subdomain?

Thank you for updating the page! I have now changed the link on sourceforge to point to the NeXTcommunity subdomain for Previous.

#78

Virtualization / Re: What Needs to be done for ...

Last post by Rhetorica - Jan 01, 2026, 06:06 PM

Hello all,
I am happy to announce the release of Previous v4.0! This release comes with an improved version of the command line utility "ditool" (disk image tool). ditool is now able to read a wider range of disk images and has improved error handling.
Previous itself has also improved: It is now possible to hide the title bar using shortcut-T and Previous identifies SCSI CD-ROM and floppy drives as known real devices instead of PreviousCD-ROM and PreviousFLOPPY. There are also some bug fixes and under the hood improvements included.
Please note that with the release of Previous v4.0 I have updated trunk to SDL3. If for some reason you cannot use SDL3 please compile branch_softfloat instead of trunk.
As usual I have compiled a binary for macOS v10.13 and later (Intel and Apple Silicon). You can load the binary here.
Have fun and feel free to report any issues.

Great stuff! I've updated http://rhetori.ca/next/ with a Windows build and http://previous.nextcommunity.net/ with both Windows and macOS builds. I keenly await new .deb files from @wmlive for Linux 4.0 coverage.

A while ago you said you'd gotten full control at last over the Sourceforge repo. Is it possible to get the "Previous Web Site" link on https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/ updated to point to the nextcommunity subdomain? EDIT: The alternative-system site is notable as a historical artifact but it's not an ideal introduction to the emulator overall.

#79

Virtualization / Re: What Needs to be done for ...

Last post by ZombiePhysicist - Jan 01, 2026, 02:45 PM

Hello all,

I am happy to announce the release of Previous v4.0! This release comes with an improved version of the command line utility "ditool" (disk image tool). ditool is now able to read a wider range of disk images and has improved error handling.

Previous itself has also improved: It is now possible to hide the title bar using shortcut-T and Previous identifies SCSI CD-ROM and floppy drives as known real devices instead of PreviousCD-ROM and PreviousFLOPPY. There are also some bug fixes and under the hood improvements included.

Please note that with the release of Previous v4.0 I have updated trunk to SDL3. If for some reason you cannot use SDL3 please compile branch_softfloat instead of trunk.

As usual I have compiled a binary for macOS v10.13 and later (Intel and Apple Silicon). You can load the binary here.

Have fun and feel free to report any issues.

Wow, what a super way to start off the year! Happy happy new year @andreas_g and to all! So psyched to see your amazing project continue to improve. Thank you so much for all your dedication and amazing work!

#80

Virtualization / Re: What Needs to be done for ...

Last post by Protocol 7 - Jan 01, 2026, 02:07 PM

Thanks for the new year's update Andreas!

I just built the trunk and ran into a minor issue. The build (on linux) fails on dns.c but suggests the fix: adding #include <ctype.h> after #include "ctl.h". This fixed the build for me.

Speaking of ditool, would it be possible to add support for Rhapsody (and maybe OS X Server 1.x images)? Rhapsody is particularly annoying as the Intel and PPC filesystems are incompatible with each other. Having a way to extract files from the CDs would be great.