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Fink 0.5.0a Released for Jaguar

Posted by pudge on from the finkiriffic dept.

benh57 writes "The binary release of Fink for Mac OS X 10.2 has finally been released! This release includes over 700 binary packages for Mac OS X 10.2 as well as over 1800 source packages of all kinds. Fink ports Unix software to Mac OS X and makes it available using debian tools like apt-get, as well as a build from source package manager." I'll be selfupdating tonight ...

6 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Great software... by singularity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I bought my G4 in March, and finally installed Fink about a month ago.

    I cannot believe I did not do it sooner. Tools like dselect and apt-get are truly great. I was setting up some local Spam filtering, using Fetchmail, PostFix, Procmail, and Spambouncer. I also installed Pine and Lynx so I could easily SSH into the machine and use it.

    Fink made the process so seamless and easy that I was amazed.

    I had researched installing the different programs by hand, and the instructions for each were several pages long. Fink reduced this down to a handful of terminal commands.

    I went ahead and installed X11 with Sawfish and Gnome. The screenshot was simply amazing.

    The fact that Apple's OS, combined with these tools, makes running these applications this easy is simply jaw-breaking.

    The good people behind Fink deserve a large pat on the break, as well as Apple, who made something like this possible in the first place.

    --
    - (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
  2. Re:I'm in love. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now if only I could use mac apps on a thin-client. Digging through config files leads me to belive that it might be possible.

    It depends on just how thin you need your client to be. You could easily netboot a room full of older imacs, without hardrives, from an xserve or two in the closet.

    And, of course, X11 programs are just as X-forward-able when running on darwin/osx as anywhere else (so, yes, you can have a room full of cheapo x86 boxen running the same copy of gimp on a mac in the other room... ssh -X is the quickest way, though you can do it without ssh's encryption and compression, too, if you feel so inclined.) But thats probably not what you meant by mac apps now, is it :)

  3. Paths? by WatertonMan · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Dumb question, but for those programs that need configuration files and environment variables updated, does the binary version do this properly? Just curious. I'd assume yes but was curious of how they do this if they don't run the installer.

    i.e. "make" to compile, "make install" to install. Or did I just answer my own question?

  4. TeX by addaon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Before I go through a full install, can anyone confirm if TeX works?

    --

    --

    I've had this sig for three days.
  5. You might also want to check out... by daveschroeder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    TeXShop, a native Mac OS X TeX previewer:

    http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/texshop.htm l

    Also, check out the Mac OS X TeX/LaTeX site:

    http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/

  6. Re:bah by cbowland · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Fink is great for working at home (snow days, sick kid, etc...). Using SSH provided by Apple, I can export my X display from my sun boxes at work and then use Fink's X server for the local display. I have also used Dia from Fink as well.

    --

    Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
    Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.