Mac Open Source - the Fink command

Recently I started using Fink on Mac OS X to install Unix open source software. Fink is easy to use, and simplifies the process of installing open source software applications on Mac OS X.

To learn about how to use Fink, just open a Terminal window and type this command:

fink --help

That brings up the following help text (the fink man page):

Fink 0.24.17

Usage: fink [options] command [package...]
       fink install pkg1 [pkg2 ...]

Common commands:
  install      - install/update the named packages
  remove       - remove the named packages
  purge        - same as remove but also removes all configuration files
  update       - update the named packages
  selfupdate   - upgrade fink to the lastest release
  update-all   - update all installed packages
  configure    - rerun the configuration process
  list         - list available packages, optionally filtering by name,
                 see 'fink list --help' for more options
  apropos      - list packages matching a search keyword
  describe     - display a detailed description of the named packages
  index        - force rebuild of package cache
  validate     - performs various checks on .info and .deb files
  scanpackages - rescans the list of binary packages on the system
  cleanup      - reclaims disk space used by temporary or obsolete files
  show-deps    - list run-time and compile-time package dependencies

Common options:
  -h, --help            - display this help text
  -q, --quiet           - causes fink to be less verbose, opposite of --verbose
  -V, --version         - display version information
  -v, --verbose         - causes fink to be more verbose, opposite of --quiet
  -y, --yes             - assume default answer for all interactive questions
  -b, --use-binary-dist - download pre-compiled packages from the binary 
                          distribution if available
  --no-use-binary-dist  - don't use pre-compiled packages from the binary 
                          distribution (opposite of -b)

See the fink(8) manual page for a complete list of commands and options.
Visit http://fink.sourceforge.net/ for further information.

Using Fink to install Subversion

As I mentioned in another blog post, I used Fink to install Subversion on my MacBook Pro. The commands are pretty simple. I typed this command to list the available svn packages:

fink list svn

This resulted in the following output:

Information about 1732 packages read in 2 seconds.
     libapache2-mod-svn             1.2.3-1012             Subversion - mod_svn
     libapache2-ssl-mod-svn         1.2.3-1012             Subversion - mod_svn (with SSL)
 i   svn                            1.2.3-1012             Subversion - svnserve, tools
 i   svn-client                     1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Client
     svn-client-ssl                 1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Client (with SSL)
     svn-dev                        1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Development headers and libraries
 i   svn-doc                        1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Documentation
     svn-javahl                     1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Java bindings
 i   svn-shlibs                     1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Shared libraries
     svn-ssl                        1.2.3-1012             Subversion - svnserve, tools (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-dev                    1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Development headers and libraries (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-doc                    1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Documentation
     svn-ssl-javahl                 1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Java bindings (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-shlibs                 1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Shared libraries (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-swig-pm-shlibs                                [virtual package]
     svn-ssl-swig-pm586             1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Swig Perl bindings (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-swig-pm586-shlibs      1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Swig Perl Shared libraries (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-swig-py23              1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Swig Python bindings (with SSL)
     svn-ssl-swig-py24              1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Swig Python bindings (with SSL)
     svn-swig-pm-shlibs                                    [virtual package]
     svn-swig-pm586                 1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Swig Perl bindings
     svn-swig-pm586-shlibs          1.2.3-1012             Subversion - Swig Perl Shared libraries

I knew I wanted to install the Subversion server and client, so I then typed this command to install the SVN server:

fink install svn

and this command to install the SVN client:

fink install svn-client

As Fink goes to work you'll see the output from your commands, and in short order the SVN server and client are installed.

Updates using Fink

As a test, I just typed the following command to see how the update process works:

fink update svn

Unfortunately there weren't any updates available, but it was cool to try.