And now he goes and tries to install XFree86
 

I'm in Fink Commander (thank you yet again merv), either

• installing xFree86;
• frozen / stuck in mid-install; or
• done with the process of installing xFree86 and don't realize it


The xFree86 (base) line in Fink Commander reads, for installation status, "current".

The last few lines of the install dialog read:

There are 46361 lines' worth of installation dialog total. I'm somewhat inclined to give it a while longer to finish setting up unless someone has a reason to think the installation is permanently hung.

Hmm, on second thought, since the "Terminate Command" menu item is greyed out, it must be completed.

The usr/x11r6 directory exists, and the command xterm is recognized, so I guess it worked :)

(Now all I gotta do is go read the FAQs and try to set it up so it can find itself, PATH statements and the like. Wish me luck...)

setting up...

is usually the last thing you'll see, and the lower left of the finkcommander window should say done and cpu usage should be back to normal and several days may have passed.

good luck, and have low expectations.

You're There
 

AHunter3

Didn't you hear the tiny little chirp from the Fink?

You should have a nice BIG red X icon in your applications folder.

As soon a you start it go to the XDarwin Preferences. Click the Startup tab and make sure that

USA.keymapping

is shown in the keymapping file box.

Then close preferences and select rootless or fullscreen and you should be running with the default ugly TWM window manager. Play around a little and when your tired of it type

exit

in the root window. Or if running fullscreen you can type CMD-a to get back to Aqua without quiting XDarwin.

Willy

I did not hear a chirp from Fink.

I do not have a nice red X in my Applications folder.

I never saw anything that said "Done" at the lower left of the Fink Commander window.

When I discovered that the menu item in Fink Commander, "Tools:Terminate Command" was greyed out, and the red stop-sign looking icon representing the same thing was also inactive, I figured "OK, either it's completely done, or Fink Commander has passed the last command-line instruction it needs to pass and figured it could close up shop and let the Unix underbelly finish up on its own".

The command "startx" is recognized from the command line. It flunks, saying "xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): no server "X" in PATH / Use the -- option, or make sure that /usr/X11R6/bin is in your path ..." I just cd's to that directory and tried to run the command from there but that didn't help. Read the man pages for startx and xinit and checked for the existence of files named ".xinitrc" or "xinitrc" (I ain't got none of those, anywhere) and then decided to pursue the matter the next day, which is today. Was figuring I had to learn all about "geometries" and configuring default clients and default servers and stuff like that, and now you tell me the sucker should launch nicely from a nice red GUI "X" icon in my Applications folder! Sounds much more user-friendly than what I was anticipating, aside from the fact that I don't have a nice red GUI "X" icon in my Applications folder. Should I nuke the installation from Fink Commander and try again, you think?

don't nuke anything. a lot of the compile has completed and is "cached". so just run the fink installer for xfreee86 again, and it should pick up where it left off. keep an eye on it for errors and report back.

Using the "Reinstall" command in the "Source" menu? Or clicking the green "+" as if I had never installed it before (and let Fink figure it out from there)?

hmm, dunno. i think reinstall smells of 'auger out the objects' so don't try that one first. just the green plus should do it, me thinks. here, anyway, it says there's nothing to do, so that bodes well, since i already have it installed.

dev tools?
 

AHunter3

Which version of developer tools did you install. You should have December Developer tools and not the beta April fools.

If you have December tools you "may" have to rebuild xFree86-base.

If you have Aplil Dev Tools you will need to somehow uninstall it and install December Dev tools. (this may be as easy as nuking the Developer folder but I'm not sure)

AFAIK Fink does NOT fully support April Dev Tools

Willy

Re: dev tools?
 

it's not quite that simple. you also have to clean up some cc/gcc symlinks in
/usr/bin/

i had to nuke all cc and gcc references before the reinstall dec dev tools would behave as expected/desired.

XFree86-rootless
 

AHunter3

Opps my misteak xfree86-rootless has the icon. The developer tools stuff still needs to be December version tho.

Willy

ps You could take the Quick and easy binary install. You just won't learn as much.

What's all this about December versus April dev tools?

How would I know which ones I have?

The most recent date in the Documentation/ReleaseNotes folder is 11/28/01.


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

Oh, and the green "+" did nothing. I opted to try the "rebuild" menu command rather than the "reinstall" menu command, figuring I've already got the source files, yes?

Here are the last few lines before Fink Commander stopped thinking it had an active process running:

I still do not get a "Done" msg at the bottom of Fink Commander. I still do not have an icon consisting of an "X" in /Applications. "startx" from the command line still results in errors as reported previously.

Bummers :(

Waitaminute... uh... :o

Perhaps the absence of beforementioned red "X" in /Applications and the lack of impressive responses to "startx" could be attributed to the absence of xfree86-rootless, i.e., the display server?

::attempts to install xfree86-rootless::

Hmmph --

bad package. very bad package. {whack package on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper}

oh, "inconsistent". i thought it said "incontinent".

I'm in a somewhat inconsistent state myself.

AHunter3,

Probably, with a little effort (almost same as the effort that takes to post in this thread), you can get out from a "somewhat inconsistent state" if you do your homework and study the information, before doing things.

There is a lot of online info on these subjects (XFree86, XDarwin, Fink, FinkCommander).

Particularly interesting for you to read, would be all the information at the fink website:

FAQ's:
http://fink.sourceforge.net/faq/index.php

Fink User Guide:
http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/users-guide/index.php

Running X11 on Darwin and Mac OS X
http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/x11/index.php

Fink-beginners archives:
http://www.mail-archive.com/fink-beg...urceforge.net/

Fink-users archives:
http://www.mail-archive.com/fink-use...urceforge.net/

Fink Download Overview:
http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/overview.php

With a little preparation, and the extremely useful 'FinkCommander', hopefully, you will have good results. But, you need to do your homework.

Good luck.

Cheers...

Appreciate the links.

Installed conflicting packages?
 

AHunter3

I don't understand how you could install system-xfree86 and xfree86-base? Sounds like a bug.

Anyway try this to see if system-xfree86 can be removed.If it looks like it will work, go ahead and do it without the --no-act part.

Since there are no apps or libs installed with system-xfree86 it "should" be completely safe to remove.

Sao

What is your take on this?

Willy

WillyT,

it looks a little bit messy.

You are right, system-xfree86 is a placeholder package for manually installed XFree86. You should install this package if you have installed XFree86 4.2.0 manually.

Also, if you installed the April Developer Tools and you must remove them, there is a perl script to do so:

/Developer/Tools/uninstall-devtools.pl

AHunter3,

There have been some reports of problems with the April Developer Tools and compiling xfree86-rootless. See if you could uninstall them (read above) and replace them with the December release and the small update.

If I get on board, we will start all over again.

Cheers...

Hello!

I'm running "reinstall" on Xfree86-base and Xfree86-rootless in Fink Commander. Right now it's acting hung on selfupdate-cvs which it went into about 8 minutes ago. The "stop sign" Fink Commander icon for terminating current command is still active though.

sao, I'm entirely open to starting from scratch.