Mac OS X for Unix Geeks

Fink

Christoph Pfisterer^[7] started the Fink project in December 2000. A number of other people continued the project after Pfisterer left it in 2002.

Fink is essentially a port of the Debian Advanced Package Tool (APT), with some frontends and its own centralized collection site, which stores packaged binaries, source code, and patches needed to build software on Mac OS X. The Fink package manager allows you to install a package, choosing whether to install it from source or a binary package. Consistent with Debian, binary package files are in the dpkg format with a .deb extension and are managed with the ported Debian tools dpkg and apt-get.

Fink also provides new tools that create a .deb package from source. A database of installed software is maintained that identifies packages by the combination of name, version, and revision. Moreover, Fink understands dependencies, uses CVS to propagate software updates, supports uninstallation, and makes it easy to see available packages and installed packages. Fink can be used to install XFree86, as well as several hundred other popular Unix packages. If you already have a copy of XFree86 installed, Fink recognizes and supports it.

Tip

Although Fink does not manage Mac OS X packages, it does require Mac OS X Developer Tools.

Fink installs itself and all of its packages, with the exception of XFree86, in a directory named /sw , thus completely separating it from the main system directory /usr. A more traditional Unix practice is to place ...