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dtc · Jan 2, 2002, 05:59 PM

What is Fink? Can I use it to run -any- Linux GNOME compliant application?

Or is there work involved? I'm not Unix guru or anything.

Angus_D · Jan 2, 2002, 08:05 PM

No offence, but steer clear of Fink unless you have a clue about *nix. Otherwise you'll just get frustrated.

beamso · Jan 2, 2002, 08:11 PM

Originally posted by dtc:
What is Fink? Can I use it to run -any- Linux GNOME compliant application?

Or is there work involved? I'm not Unix guru or anything.

You can use fink to download and install linux applications onto you Mac OS X machine (they don't necessarily have to be GNOME compliant). The previous poster is right... it's not exactly user friendly software.

Sean Ahern · Jan 2, 2002, 08:14 PM

The previous poster is right... it's not exactly user friendly software.

Well, for a UNIX app, it's pretty darn friendly. After installation (which admittedly is not very friendly), being able to type:

fink install gimp

is pretty darn easy.

Angus_D · Jan 2, 2002, 08:15 PM

Also note that you can't just install *ANY* program, it has to have been specifically packaged up by one of us fink developers

kman42 · Jan 2, 2002, 08:24 PM

I have pretty limited experience with *nix, mainly ten years ago in college. However, I have picked up the basics again with OSX. I read UNIX in a Nutshell, but that was about it. Anyway, my point is that I found Fink pretty easy to work with once you get the hang of it. Read the directions and you will be fine.

My biggest problem came when I tried to install X, but this has been greatly improved recently and my second attempt went flawlessly.

kman

v0id7 · Jan 2, 2002, 09:52 PM

If I were a moderator, I'd move this to the UNIX forum. *HINT* *HINT*

pmcd · Jan 3, 2002, 03:18 AM

Fink is lot's of fun and quite safe. It's pretty easy to use and it opens up a wealth of possibilities. I would first install xfree86 and xdarwin from (do this from http://www.osxgnu.org/software/Xwin/xfree86/ as it's a one click install) .

- now install fink
- become comfortable with sudo and terminal a bit (so you can be root from there)

- use the default list at first (that is stay in the stable tree as fink is configured when you first start)

A lot of Linux apps are available via fink, not all but a heck of a lot.
There is a beginner's fink mailing list which is very helpful.

Try it, you've nothing to lose as fink doesn't mess with OSX's system files.

Philip

Originally posted by dtc:
What is Fink? Can I use it to run -any- Linux GNOME compliant application?

Or is there work involved? I'm not Unix guru or anything.

diamondsw · Jan 3, 2002, 06:47 PM

Fink is a package manager, that's all. It won't let you install "Linux" apps per se - these have been compiled for a particular architecture. what it will do is download the source for many utilities commonly found in Linux, apply patches so they will run on Darwin, and compile them.

Fink itself is easy to use unless something goes wrong (as has happened to me once). However, there's very little it will let you install that you'd really appreciate unless you're a geek.

X-Windows being a notable exception.

Oink · Jan 3, 2002, 08:18 PM

If you Need a package manager, install fink. I wouldn't go as far as "fink = Unix gurus' toy". It is possibly safer than installing any official OSX update. You can trash the /sw directory to completely uninstall it*. Can't say that about most OSX packages.

*You do add a extra path in your .rc file but that's not very important