[clarkgoble]

Anyone else get annoyed trying to find the command to type to run some software you installed with Fink? fink list certainly does list and allow you to install the software. However once you have it installed there is typically no easy way to discern how to run the software!

Some software like xmms has the same name and binary name. However many others not only don't, but it is difficult to even find documentation on them.

Take one at random: aquaterm. Here's what fink list says:

i aquaterm 0.3.0a-5 Displays vector graphics in Aqua

Now is that a program? A library? Typing man aquaterm yields nothing. Doing a search in /sw shows us that it is a complete application but that running it does nothing. It turns out that this is an application for gnuplot and so forth to send graphics.

http://aquaterm.sourceforge.net/

Then there are the applications not listed in fink but which are installed with KDE or Gnome. How do you know how to run them without fully running Gnome/KDE? For instance it was pure luck I stumbled upon gmc for the gnome file manager. (Sometimes I want a more Windows Explorer like interface)

I don't want to disparage Fink. It is an awsome piece of work. But sometimes it can be frustrating trying to find out what is what.

[utidjian]

Get Fink Commander: http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/

it will give you a GUI so you can browse the installed software (or install fink software). There is an "info" button that pulls up a description of the package, URL for the homepage...etc. You can also browse all the files that were installed with that package. A given package may install several executables (apps and commands and whatnot), they will be in /sw/bin/ A given package also usually, but not always, comes with a manpage, that will be in /sw/share/man/ an info page /sw/share/info/ a documents set /sw/share/doc/. Libraries go in /sw/lib/.

There are probably apt-get, dpkg, and/or fink command options to do all this from the commandline but I don't know what they are.