macOS Running a Unix-based Program

waffle911 said:

Well, my limited knowledge led me to find no answers when searching, so I'm posting here as it seems to be more on the programming side of things.

I'm trying to figure out how to use X11 on OSX 10.4.11 to run KiCAD, a GPL circuit design program.

Problem is, there is zero documentation for installation on Macs, though many claim to use it as such.

I have zero programming experience, though I understand the basic concepts.
But more to the point, I have zero UNIX experience. And X11-term isn't exactly a carbon copy of a UNIX prompt either I'd imagine.

So I need to know:
What other dependencies do I need to download/run?
How the heck do I get anything to install (commands, etc.)

OpenOffice was much easier than this, so I'm at a loss (But Open Office had an installer for Macs).

Click to expand...

I actually use Kicad on a Mac. The install instructions for Linux will work on a Mac. But if you don't have a clue about how to compile source code into an executable and thrack down library dependancies then you best bet is to get VMware and install Linux inside of a VM and then run the Linux version of kicad. Gettig this to run on a Mac does require you to know about things like Makefiles and how to resolve compile errors. But it can be done. Easier to simply download Ubuntu Linux and then it becomes a simple point and click installation

Assuming you do want a native Mac OS X version then if you look inside the un-terred source distribution you will see a file called "makefile.macos" here are terse instruction inside that file.

The first step of course is to un-tar the source distribution. "cd" into that directory. Have you gotten even that far?

All of the dependancies are available from the Fink project.