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Fink 0.5.0a Released for Jaguar
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 ...
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
Fink really is something great, it's a huge effort and almost all installed packages are patched by Fink in order to compile. Installing a package using Fink does take a while, but the simple fact that it works is already simply amazing. It's great to be able to compare GIMP to Photoshop for instance, or to play with various other X11 or unix tools. Another great thing is that when you're done playing a simple "rm -rf /sw" will get rid of Fink completely (and a minor edit to your .rc). But it's staying on my Mac. Another great thing is that when you find an error in a package, and report it, the patch is quite often there the next day. Combine this with OroborOSX, XonX and FinkCommander and you'll have a dream machine.
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
Well, two things
First off, they finished this yesterday, actually got it yesterday in the irc chan on irc://irc.openprojects.net in #fink. It's really a cool installer, even detects if you have an old install and what not.
Second, there is a gui for this, http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/
It has buttons to e-mail a developer if a package is working for you, and also shows columns for if this package is out of date, or up to date, etc. It's searchable, and really cool. It doesn't require X11, it's a native apple app!
Other than that, I would like to congratulate all the people involved, for the hard work they have put into this. It's a very awesome thing.
i.e. "make" to compile, "make install" to install. Or did I just answer my own question?
So I have to disagree with the utility bit. Yeah chances are people will never run an X11 app. Even when you ask people for good X11 apps to demo, they end up coming up with Open Office, AbiWord or Gimp. Yet there are far superior programs available for native OSX. When I tried to come up with progams I'd use, they typically already had versions with Aqua front ends. (i.e. GNUplot) I thought I'd use X11 a lot. However I tend to do the "gee whiz" try things out and then promptly forget about them.
For other Fink utilities though I've been pleasantly surprised. I really have used the shell for a lot of things. Some utilities are now standard on OSX. (i.e. Python) However they really do install a lot of useful utilities - especially if you are doing a lot of web work.
Before I go through a full install, can anyone confirm if TeX works?
--
I've had this sig for three days.
> I'll be selfupdating tonight ...
If you do that too much you'll go blind ya know.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
Because it's a lot of work for apps that most Mac users don't want.
TeXShop, a native Mac OS X TeX previewer:
m l
http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/texshop.ht
Also, check out the Mac OS X TeX/LaTeX site:
http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
Jaw-breaking? I'm glad you posted. I think I'll just back slowly away from my keyboard now.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
I am your stereotypical Mac user who could still negotiate System 6 with his eyes closed yet before OS X knew little to nothing about *nix. Aside from my computer bible (Mac OS X: Unleashed), Fink has been the single most valuable tool for introducing me to the open source community. I tried compiling a few programs by myself before I used Fink, and I must say that it was a daunting task. However, with Fink I have been exposed to a ton of OSS that I never would have tried in the first place because it wouldn't be worth going through the pain of installing something I just wanted to check out.
As great as the software is, I am equally impressed by the community of fink users. I installed Linux on my TiBook just to check it out, yet when I went on IRC for help I was ignored at best and treated with hostility at worst. I went into #fink today asking some questions which I realized were rather newbish later, yet I was still treated kindly and my questions were answered to my full satisfaction and then some.
Congratulations on a job well done to everyone who has helped with Fink. Keep up the good work!
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.
I installed fink a while back. I love it. It basically allows users to install/keep uptodate opensourece software.
The install was a little confusing but well worth it. It really shows off the power of unix and Free software. I love having all the tools I use at work at home.
Prior to fink I updated my perl install by hand. With fink one app-get command and its there.
I also installed X too (for xemacs). The X is cludgy, but works well enough.
It makes the mac so much more powerful..
Oh, the GIMP's interface drives me insane, and I have 8 years of experience with Unix and X11 applications.
Its feature set is something I can't find a match for without considering Photoshop, which I can't justify paying full price for.
Now maybe Corel Draw or some other such package might meet my needs.
My point was just that there are free software packages out there that are hard to beat without spending serious cash, and you mentioned one.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a registered user of Graphic Converer, which is fantastic at what it does, but like most shareware it doesn't try to too much. This is a positive thing, but I need other tools to go with it.
Actually there are many great free software server apps (Apache, mysql etc etc) but as you were talking about desktop apps not server apps, I responded to that specifically.
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
Try a 'fink selfupdate-cvs' to get your base fink packages up to the latest. The likely problem is that your apt sources.list is pointing at the wrong place (we had to move the binary URL so it could coexist with 10.1 binaries on the apt repository).
A selfupdate-cvs should upgrade your apt and set up the proper locations, and from there you can do an "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade" to get your installation updated.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!