Help w/ open source software

[camprandy]

Hello. I am interested in installing some open source software on OS X, if it is possible. For example, I would like to install some open source file utilities/dev tools. Would someone have some (pretty detailed) instructions on how to do this(I would perfer instructions using the terminal).
For example, I go to http://www.gnu.org/ and download a package. Can I compile and install this software? I really appreciate the help!

Thanks!
Randy

[hembreed]

You will meet with varying degrees of success depending on the packages. There is a project called Fink that has ported a lot of packages over and provides a framework for porting others.

[jeffg]

When you download source, there will probably be a file called INSTALL or README which tells how to compile and install the program. Usually, there is a shell script called configure that generates a makefile, so the normal sequence of operations is:

sh configure
make
su
make install

If the configure script knows something about Darwin, then you're home free. If not, you might have to edit configure or the generated Makefile. If this is all sounds like gibberish, then you're best off looking for a binary image.