At its heart, Mac OS X is a Unix operating system. This means that plenty of Unix open source software compiles and runs on it. However, compiling software can be tedious, especially if it has many dependencies, or if it hasn’t been tested on Mac OS X. You have to perform the usual configure/make/make install process and hope it all works fine. Maybe you have to tamper with the makefile or even the source code. Moreover, you’ll need to make sure all libraries used by the software are installed. Here is where Fink comes in.
Installing Fink on Mac OS X
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Fink has been around for a while.
I’ve been using fink for a long time – works great (even though I typically just use it for simple things like wget)
hehe I use it for wget and Bitchx, but on occasion i have used it for random school related things, like prolog compilers *shudder*..
and frankly it deserves it. Fink rocks! Too bad Tiger is two steps forward, and one step backward. MacOS X could really kick more ass if Apple didn’t break its kneecaps. On an clean install, changing /etc/hosts doesn’t do anything. Count: standard unix conventions- 1, NetInfo- 0.
Back on topic. Even fink unstable works very well for me. Newbies can compile KDE if they choose. It works. Thanks fink!
I must really say that I can’t stand Fink. I’ve installed it several times (four or five), and each time I’ve had to remove it and reinstall because it just breaks.
For example, for the longest time Fink really, REALLY wanted to compile XFree86, no matter what I wanted to install. The closest I found to a solution, was “remove and reinstall”. Not exactly satisfactory.
One of my other issues with it stems from the fact that I’m a Gentoo user and prefer emerge to apt-get, but that’s just a personal preference and not something that’s “wrong” with Fink. I now use portage for OS X, which I really like. The problem is that it’s still a bit experimental and doesn’t have too many packages yet.
BTW, how does Darwinports stack up against Fink?
IMO DarwinPorts is a lot nicer than Fink, I’ve had heaps of cyclic dependency errors using Fink – mmm memories of Linux.
When I first got my Power Book back in 2002 I used fink and installed every application I needed under the Sun to get things working. But more and more I find that I just use Fink to get the odd tool normally not using X11, so I can compile something in a different language or give a unix script some ease.
I’ve tried both and they are both very well put together. I don’t know which one I prefer but I have fink atm (no specific reason though)
2 years ago I installed Fink, sometime last year I installed DarwinPorts… by comparison I preferred Fink. It always worked for me (I installed many astronomy related tools) and had a better selection. Any errors that occurred were the result of not being able to download a dependency, a second or third try at a different time always resolved the issue.
The main problem with Fink (as identified in the article) is that it likes to install different versions of the same package, doubling up on disk space & bandwidth.
I learned to do things “the hard way” without Fink because compiling xFree86 nearly every time was wearing me down!
Having said that, anything that breaks the “Mac is for artists only” mould is a good thing. There are lots of command line engineering packages – take a look at the the GNU-AVR toolchain for instance.
Most applications that i use have mac ports using X11. i tried fink in the past (like version .4 or something), at the time things were changing too rapidly so i decided against using it. also i remember a dependency of having to change the filesystem type and the permissions. with each mac os x upgrade, those permissions got screwed up. stability was also an issue.
i can’t think of a single application that i want to run on my mac that i can’t run through X11.
perhaps like most people, i also have a headless linux boxen sitting in the corner that i export applications from. but if you don’t have a linux server lying around, fink is probably a great solution.