I've always liked NeXTSTEP's distinctive user interface. I wish we had a version that ran on modern hardware, similar to what https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace is trying to achieve.
Also, Steve Jobs in Exile, the most recent book about NeXT, is highly recommended.
In Behind the scenes at the NeXT Computer officetrunkmaster
nextspace
Objective-C2018–2026
trunkmaster / nextspace
nextspace
NeXTSTEP-like desktop environment for Linux
24Distinct people
55Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
2.1KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
NeXTSTEP-like desktop environment for Linux
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
I've always liked NeXTSTEP's distinctive user interface. I wish we had a version that ran on modern hardware, similar to what https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace is trying…
felixding used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- onflapp/gs-desktop · linked in 3 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year55 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-08-02 21:58:08 UTC to 2026-10-26 04:24:26 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 16 | 1 | 15 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
NEXTSPACE
NEXTSPACE is a desktop environment that brings a NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux. I try to keep the user experience as close as possible to the original NeXT OS. It is developed according to the "OpenStep User Interface Guidelines".
An explanation of the NeXTSTEP / NextStep naming convention is discussed in further detail here.
I want to create a fast, elegant, reliable, and easy to use desktop environment with maximum attention to user experience (usability) and visual maturity. I would like it to become a platform where applications will be running with a taste of NeXT's OS. Core applications such as Login, Workspace, and Preferences are the base for future application development and examples of visual style and application integration methods.
NEXTSPACE is not just a set of applications tightly integrated to each other. It is a core OS with frameworks, mouse cursors, fonts, colors, animations, and everything I think will help users to be effective and happy.
Brief introduction to core NEXTSPACE applications contains some details and screenshots.
Why?
I like the look, feel, and design principles of NeXTSTEP.
I believe it will become an interesting environment for developers and comfortable (fast, easy to use, feature-rich) for users.
Unlike other 'real' and 'serious' projects, I have not yet defined a target audience for NEXTSPACE. I intentionally left aside modern UI design trends (fancy animations, shadows, gray blurry lines, flat controls, acid colors, transparency). I like the accurate, clear, grayish, and "boring" UI that helps, not hinder, to get my job done.
Not planned
Porting to other Linux distributions and operating systems. For now, I want a fast, accurate, and stable version for RedHat-based Linux distributions. Currently these are Fedora, CentOS Stream 9, Rocky Linux 9 and Alma Linux 9. However, NEXTSPACE was designed to be portable and thus this point may be changed in future.
GNOME, KDE, macOS rival in terms of visual effects, modern design principles, look and feel.
Implementing a macOS-like desktop paradigm. There is another good place for this -- see Étoilé.
Installing
There are several methods of NEXTSPACE installation:
Get release builds here. At the time of writing there are RPM builds for CentOS 7, 8 and Fedora31. As of CentOS 7 EOL in 2024, no more CentOS builds will be created in the future. RPM packages will built for latest release of Fedora. Optionally may be created builds for stable Debian release and packed as a tarball.
Make own build of packages. Installation is based off CentOS 7's minimal install, you can find full directions in the installation guide.
Install it from source with help of build scripts (tested on Debian, Ubuntu LTS and Fedora). Please follow build instructions if you've choose this way.
For developers
For those who are eager to know "How it's done?" can find information on development tasks, goals, solutions, implementation details, and build instructions on the Wiki.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
55 sourcesYou should then give NEXTSPACE a try: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
I think it’s the closest thing to that dream today.
In KDE at 30In case you don't know yet, there is a project that tries to bring the NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux:
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
In A new book on Steve Jobs at NeXT100% this.
Let's hope projects like https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace succeed.
In NeXTSTEP on Pa-RISC> I am absolutely blown away to have the author of AppImage (Probono) partnering with me
:-)
> which eventually brought me to making FuryBSD for a short time.
Ahaaaa. I did not realise that. Perhaps you should mention that in a FAQ or something? I think tying the different projects together like that would make it clear there is a quite considerable bit of history in here.
> I am very much looking forward to seeing the cool things we can do together in 2026!
Kudos for the positivity.
I left the GNUstep community a year or so back, after the admins got angry with me for daring to have opinions about the project that differ from theirs.
I think that as well as (1) a set of development libraries, it's also (2) a quite impressive set of apps, (3) an app packaging format, and perhaps most importantly (4) a quite complete desktop environment.
Read the rest
They only seem to care about #1 and regard points 2-4 as annoying distractions.
For what it's worth, I know of two other active, current GNUstep-based desktop environments, which have slightly different focuses.
1. Ondrej Florian's GSDE: https://onflapp.github.io/gs-desktop/index.html
I've written a bit about this:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/06/two_new_debian_deskto...
I had great difficulty getting it to build on Debian 13, but I should try again at some point.
2. Sergii Stoian's NEXTSPACE: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
Slightly more mature but Stoian's been distracted recently by Russia invading his country, so it's not seen much work of late.
Glad you like it and thanks for the recommendation!
Nonetheless, being the maintainer of this project, i'd like to point out that this is no dedicated GNUstep distro, but a mostly Debian based distribution using a thoroughly preconfigured Window Maker as its primary user interface, and that just happens to have the whole range of available GNUstep applications added on.
As already written elsewhere[3], citing my own words, this is a better characterization of its scope:
»Window Maker is just a highly compatible X11 window manager and is supposed to work as such. There is no interest to specifically integrate it with the provided GNUstep applications, as this is not supposed to be predominantly a GNUstep desktop. The included GNUstep applications are just an addon to give people a practical way to verify what GNUstep has to offer. In fact,
Read the rest
wmlive would be perfectly usable without providing any single GNUstep application. The freedom and flexibility provided by an X11 window manager instead of the walled garden of a specific desktop system is much more preferable to many Linux users. NeXT nostalgists might want to look elsewhere. [1][2]«
People who's interest has been sufficiently piqued to download wmlive are advised to better wait until after Debian's bookwom 12.12 point release this saturday. A final bookworm based wmlive release will be uploaded shortly after. This will also be the last and final 32bit i386 variant of wmlive. After that work on an exclusively amd64 trixie based wmlive variant will begin.
[1] https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
[2] https://github.com/onflapp/gs-desktop
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44640378
For completeness, I should point out that GSDE does inherit a little from an older project in a similar vein -- NEXTSPACE:
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
It's Ukrainian so not much development in a while, because of the war. Also, it mainly targets CentOS, so I've not tried it as that's not a distro I enjoy using.
In GNUStep Desktop: modern NeXT/OpenStep-like Linux desktop environmentRelevant -- there are 2 other desktop environments built on GNUstep that are in more active maintainance.
NEXTSPACE:
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
<- Ukrainian so not much development in a while; mainly targets CentOS
GSDE:
https://onflapp.github.io/gs-desktop/index.html
<- More recent, native to Debian but runs on other things.
In Étoilé – desktop built on GNUStepI agree.
It's not really what you're asking, but I know of two Linux desktops that are based around GNUSTEP.
NEXTSPACE:
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
-- primarily targets CentOS
GSDE:
https://onflapp.github.io/gs-desktop/index.html
-- primarily targets Debian
In Show HN: OS X Mavericks Forever@wmlive has already brought these up, but I think they're worth highlighting again: check out these projects if you're interested in NeXTSTEP-like desktop environments:
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
https://github.com/onflapp/gs-desktop
In Modern Debian-based Window Maker distributionwmlive maintainer here.
In fact, this should rather be considered a Window Maker based Debian/Bookworm distribution instead the stated reverse. Certainly more then 95% of the shipped packages are plain Debian/Bookworm packages, with only a few additional packages contributed by yours truly.
The main merit of wmlive is providing the necessary glue to properly preconfigure Window Maker with an out of the box usable environment (unlike Debian's crude/primitive Window Maker configs) and make it the default GUI.
The other merit is to make the supplied software complete enough to serve as a standalone system without the immediate need to connect to the internet to install more useful packages than are normally supplied by distributions in their quest to provide an initial system too generic to be really useful by already experienced users. This
Read the rest
is not meant for beginners,
While some work went in homogenizing the overall looks with Window Maker's own WINGs widget set, no efforts were wasted with further eye candy stuff. The themeability of the WINGs widgets are limited to that crufty NeXTSTEP look everybody either loves or despises, being the least common visual denominator. Not being particularly enamored of these visuals, but this was the only way to find some common ground for the look and feel.
Window Maker is just a highly compatible X11 window manager and is supposed to work as such. There is no interest to specifically integrate it with the provided GNUstep applications, as this is not supposed to be predominantly a GNUstep desktop. The included GNUstep applications are just an addon to give people a practical way to verify what GNUstep has to offer. In fact, wmlive would be perfectly usable without providing any single GNUstep application. The freedom and flexibility provided by an X11 window manager instead of the walled garden of a specific desktop system is much more preferable to many Linux users. NeXT nostalgists might want to look elsewhere. [1][2]
What most people don't seem to get is that there is much more to wmlive than just the visible desktop. Below the hood is a wide range of command line tools suitable for system rescue and repair when using it as a live system booted from an USB stick. Supposedly many youngsters who were yet to be born when we already grew up with Linux from day one have never learned to look beyond what's visually obvious.
If anyone who downloaded it does like wmlive, I'd appreciate a donation via the download pages. While i hate sounding like a beggar, given the current economic situation i could really use it. Thanks!
[1] https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
[2] https://github.com/onflapp/gs-desktop
> I find Appimage to be better alternative to Flatpak
Me too.
But there is a "bigger picture" view of this which I think is important and relevant:
• AppImage encapsulates apps' requirements using the app bundle format from the ROX desktop: https://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/
• ROX borrowed the idea of app bundles from Acorn's RISC OS, which is still around and is FOSS now: https://www.riscosopen.org/content/
• The RISC OS desktop treats folders whose names begin with a pling (`!`, an exclamation mark) specially. It expects a structure inside with an icon, a launcher script, etc.
• RISC OS also had an "icon bar", a forerunner of the Windows taskbar
• One of the Acorn engineers who worked on RISC OS was head-hunted to NeXT Computer in California. He took his Archimedes with him.
Source: an interview I arranged: https://www.theregister.com
Read the rest
/2022/06/23/how_risc_os_happened/
• About a year later, Steve Jobs demonstrated NeXTstep 0.8 with a Dock
• NeXTstep also has app bundles, demarked by a folder called $NAME.app instead of !$NAME
This is a pervasive and influential idea. It's how macOS apps work and that can be traced to RISC OS.
NeXT style bundles are available and work on Linux if you have GNUstep. There are 2 extant GNUstep desktops:
https://onflapp.github.io/gs-desktop/index.html
https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
But there is a distro which takes this idea much further and packages the _entire Linux OS_ in app-bundle directories:
https://gobolinux.org/
I think the makers of Flatpak, Nix, Guix, and Spack -- https://spack.io/ -- all really ought to take a deep look at ROX, AppImage, and GoboLinux.
What all of these do can be done better, in a more human-readable way, if you throw away ancient UNIX assumptions about filesystem directory hierarchies.
This was mostly not designed and was in historical fact accidental anyway:
https://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/07...
This is much nicer: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace/blob/master/Documen...
In SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfacesAlso: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace for various versions of Linux:
"NEXTSPACE is a desktop environment that brings a NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux. I try to keep the user experience as close as possible to the original NeXT OS. It is developed according to the "OpenStep User Interface Guidelines"."
In Window Maker: X11 window manager with the look and feel of the NeXTSTEP UIShowing the 15 most recent of 55 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.