GhostBSD 25.02-R14.3p2 was announced this evening as the newest incremental update to this FreeBSD 14 based operating system focused on providing a nice out-of-the-box desktop experience. Notable with this new GhostBSD release is now shipping a Gershwin community preview for this desktop environment focused on providing a Mac OS X like user experience, complete with GNUstep usage.
GhostBSD 25.02-R14.3p2 builds off upstream FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE with various refinements to enhance the user experience as well as landing some GhostBSD bug fixes compared to earlier releases.
Most interesting with this new GhostBSD desktop operating system update is introducing the Gerhswin communityp review for this community desktop focused on a macOS-like user experience with GNUstep. Gershwin provides a Mac OS X inspired interface while having “seamless” integration with GhostBSD tools and more.
For those unfamiliar with the Gershwin desktop, it can be found via GitHub. Gershwin wants to promote the growth of Objective-C and Cocoa-style application development. Some key points from the GitHub:
Will Gershwin ever support Wayland?
GNUstep has experimental wayland support and we use it’s core libs.Will Gershwin ever be Wayland only?
There will be no effort to make Gershwin wayland only since we use core libs from GNUstep.What window manager is Gershwin using?
XFCE4-WM but a new window manager may be written from scratch at some point.
Those wanting to learn more about this new GhostBSD release and its Gershwin desktop option can do so via GhostBSD.org.
GhostBSD with Gerhswin did remind me of the helloSystem BSD distribution focused on providing a a macOS inspired desktop experience. Sadly there hasn’t been a new ISO release of helloSystem since February 2024 and looks like the early excitement around helloSystem has, unfortunately, faded.
