Hi

I just returned back and saw you letter , i pushed teh button on my own letter and it worked, try to copy paste it to your browser!

Anders

bassballs,

You are right, it now works. It was a problem with my browser.

Yes, it's a good little guide more geared towards linux users. But I still consider "XFree86 Install guide" in MacOS X Hints to be superior and more complete.

To everyone,

I want to mention that the problem installing only from apt-get or dselect is that they only know about packages available as precompiled binary packages.

Many packages are not available in precompiled form through these tools for a variety of reasons. A package must be in the "stable" section of the latest point release to be considered, and it must pass additional checks for policy compliance as well as licensing and patent restrictions.

If you want to install a package that is not available via dselect / apt-get, you have to compile it from source using 'fink install packagename'. Make sure you have the Developer Tools installed before you try this.

So for more experienced users, I will repeat here what I said in another post before: don't be afraid of using unstable.

Fink is a volunteer effort.

As you all know, there are packages in stable and unstable sections.

One of the ways we all can help is by testing the packages from unstable (it is called "unstable" because this packages are not well-tested ;)).

If nobody tested them, they will probably take a long time to be upgraded to the stable section. Which by consequence will mean less binary packages to install.

But, you can help improve the situation by testing those packages and reporting both 'success and failure' to the package maintainer or provide feedback through the fink mailing lists about the packages you tested.

In order to 'test' packages, you have to get the latest descriptions from CVS and configure Fink to use unstable.

Right now there are about 652 packages that need testing and feedback.

As you can see it here in the following link:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/testing.php

Happy finking.


Cheers...

A "for instance" re: useable unstable packages...mozilla.

On it's own, fink will only install version 0.9 something-or-other, but if you allow it to install "unstable" you can get 1.0rc3 which is really quite stable...and the fastest browser you can use on your Mac right now (yes, faster than the OS X mozilla 1.0).

rusto,

I agree 100%. Mozilla 1.0rc3 works great with me too. It's a joy to use.

Cheers...

sao et al., what are your thoughts on the April Dev Tools with fink? I've heard mixed things like: "The gcc compiler might cause problems with some fink packages" and "The gcc compiler isn't turned on by default, so it's ok to use the April Dev Tools with fink". Any suggestions?

i've had nothing but trouble. there is a pesky symlink gcc->gcc2 that caused a lot of compiles to gak. since i downgraded dev tools and finally found that FOD symlink that was leftover, i've been better.

FOD=foreign object debris - litter on runways that cause jets to gak.

The GIMP is in!
 

Thanks for all the tips, you have all made this a great experience..

I am thoroughly impressed. Installing everything through FINK has been a comfort, it seems to handle so many details - helping me avoid alot of crazy UNIX geek-talk (even though it's fun, where can one find the time!)..

---

I'm noticing a few things..

I have an Apple Pro mouse (the no-button wonder) and it seems xWindows wants to enjoy a three-button furry critter - will any three-button work? Does this xWindows system understand a scroll wheel and/or multi-button mouse without drivers? For now it looks like the CNTRL and OPTN keys will simulate them as I need them.

xDarwin launched alone loads up some kind of windows manager - is this a barebones version (it certainly isn't as pretty)? It seems to load up SO MUCH FASTER than OroborOSX however, why such a difference in load time?

Once in xWindows I can't figure out how to assign icons to the different X11 programs, must we use the terminal to launch programs? Any leads to go totally GUI will help out my wife (who hopes to use GIMP and such alot more than me, but is much less techo-friendly) and make things easier for her. Anyone know of a guide / evaluation of the various windows managers? The whole GUI thing seems to really depend on which manager I settle on and there's so many to choose from.. for now OroborOSX seems to do a nice job, further thoughts?

---

When GIMP loads I get the following feedback:
Do I need to install this LIBMPEG package (I did notice it in DSELECT, but it's 60 some odd megs fat!) in order for GIMP to work properly? I'm assuming it's not absolutely needed since FINK didn't install it automatically.

---

Perhaps AbiWord is next, this whole open-source movement is such a treasure-field - I'm amazed more don't dig in.. :)

Jacques

Timan, MervTormel,

I will advice you to stick with the December Developer Tools for the moment. A bunch of the fink developers are working hard in preparing fink for MacOS X 10.2 which will use the gcc3 compiler and use bash rather than zsh to provide /bin/sh functionality.

Work is going on at full speed. There are already many packages tested and there is a list of succesful/unsuccesful packages here:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/porting/preparing.php

The list of tested packages is growing daily. If you still want to use the April Developer Tools, I suggest you check the list before installing a package.

Another issue with the gcc3 compiler is an incompatibility for C++ ABIs between gcc2 and gcc3. In practice, this means that C++ programs compiled with gcc3 cannot link to libraries compiled with gcc2.

I still use only the December Developer Tools and will wait a little longer to use the April release.

If you are a developer or package maintainer you probably will know how to deal with the problems, but for the average user the order of changing to April Tools (by fink) is not yet here.


Cheers...

thanx for the skinny, sao. those guys do a lot of good work. once i wanted to be a port guru, but i sucked at it. i suck less at admin, i guess.

Although as mentioned elsewhere the April DevTools still default to using gcc 2.95 and one must explicitly invoke gcc3. ;)

Jacques,

Congratulations, you got The Gimp installed. Here is a good manual on how to use it that you can download for free:

http://manual.gimp.org/


If you have an Apple Pro mouse, the CNTRL and OPTN keys will do for the moment.

Which window manager did you installed till now ? (Besides OroroOSX)


You can visit the following site to help you choose a window manager:

http://www.PLiG.org/xwinman/


Or visit some of the home pages themselves:

http://windowmaker.org/

http://www.enlightenment.org/pages/main.html

http://icewm.sourceforge.net/

http://www.afterstep.org/


And, if you want to check for themes for most window managers or have an idea of how they look, visit this site:

http://themes.freshmeat.net/articles/view/439/


When you get those errors after starting The Gimp, are you in rootless-mode or fullscreen ? And are you starting from terminal.app or an xterm?


Cheers...

Craig,

Conversation between Chris Zubrzyck and Max Horn at the fink lists:

----------------------------

CZ: the April Dev tools work great.

MH: Except for the things that don't work. :-)


CZ: there are some bugfixes and you can *choose* to use gcc3 as the default compiler.

MH: Yes but even if you don't some things will break...

----------------------------

Most Fink users will probably have fewer headaches with the December version until the gcc3 issues and others are ironed out. :)

Cheers...

Thanx for the info everyone, and welcome to the fink club, Jacques. Don't worry, there's a lot of good help for you (here and on those links sao gave you) so I imagine you'll be able to get your problems resolved before too long. It seems like I got similar errors when I had compiled something using bash. Now I do 'exec sh' before updating/compiling, and haven't had any issues yet. BTW, I'm still confused on this whole bash or zsh providing sh functionality. What does that mean? Those fink people are doing a great job, I agree.

OK, so I have a question. Or two. ;)

How big is the download for everything I'd need to run Gimp? I'm on dial up, so I don't want to try to download 300MB any time soon. If it is a huge download, can I download using wget or curl (for download continuation) and install from a local drive using Fink?

How exactly does this work? By installing XFree86, are you essentially replacing the Aqua layer on OS X? I know there are different layers to OS X (the GUI, the graphics rendering engine, etc) but I am still not 100% clear on everything yet. So essentially, I want to know if you're running basically another operating system on top of OS X, or just a small portion (like the GUI).

What is the minimum required to run Gimp? Do I need OroborOSX and another window manager? Or is OroborOSX a window manager in its own right (like WindowMaker)?

And finally, how long is the River Nile? ;)

nkuvu,

The only answer I know for certain is about the lenght of the river Nile:

It's 26 cm long. :)

'Search God Google' and others will help through your tribulations.

It's almost 6 AM in Singapore, and although I'm in holiday, and wife and kids in Europe, I'm going to sleep now.

Will come back and see you all tomorrow.

Good night.

Cheers...

26 cm?? Wow, I thought it was a lot longer than that... :D

And I could do a search on Google, but I figured that this would be a lot faster, since someone in the know could answer my questions.

I am curious now, though. No one suggested to Jacques to do a search on Google for the information. Search the forum, yes, but not Google.

What's the matter, do I have bad breath or something?

nkuvu: only you can answer that one for sure! :D

But, from my limited recollection of setting up fink for the first time, a little checklist:

1) Be sure to have the BSD subsystem and the OS X Developer Tools (the Dec. 2001 release for 10.1.x) installed.

2) Install fink using the handy-dandy Installer package; I admit I do not remember what configuration information may be requested here; it's been a while.

3) Run a 'fink selfupdate' to get to the latest version of fink and the package database. This will also verify the the Devtools work.

4) Now comes the point where we will diverge: I build everything from source, and you will probably just want to install binaries. My suggestion to you would be to first download Fink Commander, which provides a GUI front end to fink.

5) If the above goes correctly you should be able to run Fink Commander and see the list of packages available.

6) Install Xfree86 - those would be the packages xfree86-base and xfree86-rootless. You should be able to install these as binaries.

7) Install a window manager - OroborOSX is a good choice; it uses the oroboros window manager customised to blend in with OS X. It also requires minimal configuration. Test it to see if XFree86 was installed correctly.

8) Now get your application - the GIMP. In Fink Commander, select 'gimp' from the graphics subcategory. It should tell you it depends on other packages and so will install them as well. Do so.

9) Let us know if things went wrong, as I say, the methods I use are somewhat different and the odds that I forgot something pretty good. Search the board here and the main site as well. Sao is the true expert. I'm sure he'll catch my mistakes. ;)

Per some of your other queries: fink already uses curl; you will find that OroborOSX runs in 'rootless' mode right alongside Aqua; same operating system (Darwin), different interface; and fink will let you explore several other window managers, I'd wait til we get the first one working.

Oh, and I don't know about the Nile, but you remind me it's been a long time since last watching "The Mountains of the Moon."

nkuvu,

Good day!

I see Craig gave you excellent advice. Just filling the gaps here.

If you are in a dial-up connection, you will probably have to wait quite some time to download everything you need.

The fink installer is 8.4 MB. You can download from here:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php

The gimp-1.2.3.tar.bz2 size (which is the last version I installed) is 10.2 MB.

It will probably also download and install gtk+ which is about 2.7 MB in tar.gz format.

The December Developer Tools are 217.9 MB .

I would also install several window managers, besides OroborOSX, to check which one you prefer best. They are not so big in size.

OroborOSX-v0.8b.tar---------------2.2 MB
WindowMaker-0.80.0.tar.bz2 ----1.9 MB
blackbox-0.62.1.tar.gz-------------296 KB
icewm-1.0.9-2.tar.gz---------------616 KB
enlightenment-0.16.5.tar.gz-----10.8 MB
sawfish-1.0.1-repack.tar.bz2----996 KB

If you have any problems, please let us know.

Cheers...

PS: No comments about your breath though :)

That's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks to you both.

I have experience with WindowMaker from the Unix world (and I like it) but I think I might just go with OroborOSX since it has more of an Aqua feel... Anyway.

Unfortunately, I only have the April developer tools. Is there a way that I can make those work instead of the December tools? I can get the December tools if necessary, but it is a large download, and I'd like to avoid that if possible.

nkuvu,

My advice would be for you to try to get the Dec Dev Tools. (maybe somebody can lend you a CD ?)

If you decide to use the April Tools, prepare yourself to probably encounter some problems later on.

Anyhow, let me know, I will do my best to help you along the way.

You can also read my post above in answer to Timan and MervTormel about the same subject.

Good luck.

Cheers...