Need help from some semi-experienced Fink users...

[Littleodie914]

Hey guys, I just downloaded Fink for Mac OS X, and I'm having fun with it so far. I'm wondering though, after it's finished downloading a file, the terminal just sits there for 60+ seconds with the speed at 0, and the download at 100% before it goes on to the next item. Is this normal? And what exactly can Fink do besides just fetch and install unix/linux programs? Can I install Gnome or KDE right next to Mac OS X? I'm not über-experienced with unix, so is this possible, or just a really bad idea?

[daveL]

After Fink downlowds a package , it has to unpack it, check the md5 signiture, register it, etc. If it was a source code package, it has to compile it. Last, but not least, it has to install everything (program, man pages, libraries).

I'm not sure what you mean by: "what exactly can Fink do besides just fetch and install unix/linux programs?" That's exactly Fink's purpose. What else you you want it to do? Are you looking for a back rub? :)

Yes, you can run KDE and GNOME along side the OS X GUI. You have to run those desktops from within X11 (which OS X doesn't install by default). So, first you have to install X11 AND the X11 development libraries, which are an optional part of the Xcode development tools installation. Then you use Fink or Darwin ports, which I prefer a bit over Fink, to install KDE and/or GNOME. Both KDE and GNOME have very large numbers of dependencies on other packages, so be prepared for a lot of downloads and builds.

[Apple Hobo]

And what exactly can Fink do besides just fetch and install unix/linux programs?

It can uninstall the installed packages and it can also update installed packages. That's about it. Fink is one of my favorite apps. :cool:

[Littleodie914]

Thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate it. I was messing around with it a little while ago, installing xmms. There were a few package requirements that it needed to run, so I said "yes" to grabbing all of those as well. Everything installed just fine, but when I type "xmms" in the terminal, it comes up with an error telling me it cannot "open the display." What exactly does this mean? I heard that sometimes you have to run the programs in X11 to get them to work, but when I tried to open my copy of X11, it just bounced in the dock 6-7 times then closed. I know that my X11 was working before this, as I used it to edit a file in emacs just yesterday. Any ideas? :confused:

[nesbitt_a]

Thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate it. I was messing around with it a little while ago, installing xmms. There were a few package requirements that it needed to run, so I said "yes" to grabbing all of those as well. Everything installed just fine, but when I type "xmms" in the terminal, it comes up with an error telling me it cannot "open the display." What exactly does this mean? I heard that sometimes you have to run the programs in X11 to get them to work, but when I tried to open my copy of X11, it just bounced in the dock 6-7 times then closed. I know that my X11 was working before this, as I used it to edit a file in emacs just yesterday. Any ideas? :confused:

Your problem is your DISPLAY variable (which windowing server to use) has not been set. Open the X11 app, and open terminal. In terminal type:

export DISPLAY=:0.0

which will set your display variable to x11 and the type "xmms" (no quotes) in terminal, which should work!

[nesbitt_a]

Your problem is your DISPLAY variable (which windowing server to use) has not been set. Open the X11 app, and open terminal. In terminal type:

export DISPLAY=:0.0

which will set your display variable to x11 and the type "xmms" (no quotes) in terminal, which should work!

... or in tcsh/csh

setenv DISPLAY :0.0

[Littleodie914]

An apology to the above two posters... Neither of the options worked. :( I realize the second did not because I'm running a bash shell, but the first didn't work either. It didn't give me any error messages, but neither did it solve the problem. :confused: It came up again with the same thing...

** CRITICAL **: Unable to open display

Anything else? I really appreciate the help so far!! :) ;)

[Littleodie914]

Ah ha! Got it.... All I had to do was type "startx" and then inside the xterm window type "xmms". Thanks for all your help guys! (P.S. This is fun :D)

[Westside guy]

An apology to the above two posters... Neither of the options worked. :( I realize the second did not because I'm running a bash shell, but the first didn't work either. It didn't give me any error messages, but neither did it solve the problem. :confused: It came up again with the same thing...

** CRITICAL **: Unable to open display

Anything else? I really appreciate the help so far!! :) ;)

Make sure you were typing the number 0 (zero) and not the letter O when you set DISPLAY. Also spacing can be critical - you can't have spaces around the equal sign for instance.

As long as you've got X11 running prior to setting DISPLAY you should be good to go. "startx" basically does the same thing, but is really unnecessary in this context.

Edit: Note that you have to have DISPLAY set in the particular terminal that you intend to type the X11 commands in. Each bash session has its own environment. That's why I just have DISPLAY set inside by .bashrc file - I've always got the DISPLAY variable set without having to think about it.