[koldhardd]

Hi,
How do i install and run x11 aplications in osx (that do not have an applescript to run it)?
i'm trying to get a look at xroach and xfishtank
and i'm trying to install kde (i'm in the process of downloading... but then what?).
i did a search already and i couldnt find a step by step how-to on this issue (if u know of a post, feel free to let me know)
i'm completely new to this.
thanks.

[Chris O'Brien]

An easy way to do it is just to rely on fink to do it for you:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/

[suthercd]

koldhardd,

I suggest subscribing to the fink-beginners mailing list. Go to fink at sourceforge to find help, FAQ, and info on mailing lists. It takes some research and there is a learning curve, but the poeple of the mailing list are extremely helpful. This is a new resource for Mac users and worth exploring.

Craig

[Chris O'Brien]

suthercd,

Out of interest (I've been using fink only for a few months), what is there to learn? I'm not having a go at you or anything, but I feel from your post that I may be missing some of the things fink has to offer.

All I've ever used fink for was 'fink install whatever', 'fink update' and 'fink list' to see what I can get.

Anything else I should know?

Oh, and koldhardd, fink commander might be good if you're not used to the terminal - although, for the three commands I use fink for, I haven't seen it's worth...

[suthercd]

Black Book,

I use Fink Commander as well as the command line and also try packages in the unstable tree. With the unstable tree there are around 1,500 new or different packages. There are binary packages which are pre-compiled and packages that need to be compiled from source. Turn on Use Unstable Packages in FinkCommander's prefs...then see what is new.

I have needed to use the fink help when a package does not work properly. For instance, when the switch was made to fink 0.6.2 when Panther was released, all of the files in fink needed to be recomplied by their maintainer and many then had problems. kde and gnome were unusable. Through the fink site I was able to find out that there were problems with qt3 and other libs that were preventing a successful install. Instead of thinking I had screwed up somehow and then going through the 4-8 hour compile over and over, I knew to wait until updates were released.

The FAQ helped me understand the difference between stable and unstable packages. When I get an error during compile, I can troubleshoot with both the help and FAQ sections.

From the FAQ I determined I wanted to switch to a rysnc scheme for updates which proved to be faster.

When the switch was made to the bash shell in Panther, my $PATH had the paths to /sw and /sw/bin ahead of /bin and /usr/bin so when I used a command X11 and Terminal would fink the fink equivalent of a command rather than the Apple install. The FAQ helped me noodle it out.

Stuff like that. I explore and get over my head then look to the fink site for answers and learn.

It's a great tribute to the people who maintain fink (all volunteers) that someone can download, install and bingo.

Craig

[Kristoff]

Fink makes a mess.

all you need is

download src

./configure

make

make install

[Earth Mk. II]

and, conversely...

fink install package names

Fink really doesn't make a mess at all... everything goes in /sw and fink will handle any dependancies you need.

plus, running fink remove package names is much easier then hunting down all the executables, shared libraries, and whatnot that get placed in /usr, /usr/local, and wherever else when you want a particular app off your system.

Plus fink will automatically patch some apps that haven't had OS X/Darwin ports fully merged into their source trees yet, and apply diffs that aren't included in the main source tarball.

That's the point of a package manager, it makes things easier to work with, so you actually get work done.

Especially if you're thinking of installing KDE, there are a lot of dependancy induced headaches if you try to compile everything yourself. Not that you can't do it that way, but fink makes it noticeably less bothersome.

[Chris O'Brien]

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
Especially if you're thinking of installing KDE, there are a lot of dependancy induced headaches if you try to compile everything yourself. Not that you can't do it that way, but fink makes it noticeably less bothersome.

Yeah - like the tetex dependency problem I'm going through at the moment.