# I can't believe this is working...



## davidbrit2 (Sep 24, 2002)

Have a look at the attached screenshot. That's me running xSMBrowser which requires

1. Tcl
2. Tk
3. Expect/Expectk
4. XFree86
5. Everything else required by the above packages

I'm still in shock that it's all running properly. Yeah, xSMBrowser looks ugly compared to Aqua, but it's no slower than the Finder's Connect to Server, and it doesn't freeze like SMB Browser. Yay! Now I can rocket around my local network. The next step will be hacking in nmap capabilities... Mua ha ha ha ha!

I love UNIX.


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## Rhino_G3 (Sep 25, 2002)

Awesome,  Congrats!  A lot more patience than I'd have for it!


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 25, 2002)

Yeah, it took a lot of patience, but I only have one class on Tuesdays, so what the heck.  I've been wanting to be able to browse samba shares properly from my iBook for a _long_ time, so I was motivated.


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## exu (Sep 29, 2002)

did u use fink. i have gotten so much cool unix sw running with fink.


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## davidbrit2 (Sep 29, 2002)

I actually didn't use fink to get a single bit of all that software - which probably explains why it took so long.  I've always been hesitant to use fink, because the idea of it just makes me generally uneasy. I prefer to do the installations myself.


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## Untitled (Sep 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by davidbrit2 _
> *I've always been hesitant to use fink, because the idea of it just makes me generally uneasy. I prefer to do the installations myself. *



Yes I agree.
You can't be sure your getting the most up to date versions and it CAN cause problems. Exa, if everything does not install without error. 

I had to reinstall X after fink had a bad relationship with my iMac.  Then again, I am a unix newbie so...


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## exu (Sep 29, 2002)

i have screwed fink up good to, but only had to reinstall fink + everything installed via fink. since fink uses a separate directory structure i only had to remove fink and not my os. the only thing i have found being put into /usr is x11. i find fink at least takes the hassle out of all your dependencies. plus the only reason it got screwed up in the first place is because i didn't read the readme.


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## Untitled (Sep 29, 2002)

My problem was I couldn't boot 
It happened right after I installed fink and then restarted.

Speaking of scary situations, I also got stuck in the zsh shell without being able to log in. My computer would just start up then go into the zsh shell with a comment about /etc/ missing. That was a pain to fix...

All I will say is I do NOT want that to happen again and will NOT install fink again. Installing everything individually gets you experience anyhow right?


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## BSDimwit (Sep 30, 2002)

Coming from the FreeBSD world, I long for the day when a similar ports collection gets implemented.  Fink is ok in the time being, but the FreeBSD ports collection is IMHO much simpler, and way more comprehensive.  I recall an article where Jordan Hubbard's wish list included a more comprehensive ports system, but it seems that no one has written one as of yet.

If I recall correctly, Fink is based off of some debian code...but its biggest downfall is that its collection is far too small.  I think they tried to reinvent the wheel a bit too much.  FreeBSD's ports collection is HUGE and I wonder why Apple, or Fink for that matter didn't just emulate it.   Darwin's userland is a FreeBSD derivitive, so it would have made sense to me to keep things similar in that regard.

FreeBSD's collection is huge for the reason it's controlled by a team of committers who take stuff thats been ported by folks like you and me, give it a cursory glance to ensure all the ducks are in row, then boom, they commit it to the cvs servers... Once that has taken place its an easy matter to keep your ports collection tree up to date with a cron job or a few simple keystrokes.

Once your tree is up to date, a simple cd /usr/ports/www/netscape; make; make install; make clean and voila, Netscape's most current port is installed.  And you don't have to worry about finding the source code... the Makefile takes care of all that for you... 

Yes, FreeBSD's port system lacks a few things, but all in all I think that the bang for buck far outstrips that of Fink.  I don't know what Fink's policy is on others offering up ports to work in their collection, but if they want their collection to grow to the mammoth size that FreeBSD's has, they need to implement some sort of mechanism for Mac Hackers to offer up their ports to the collective.

In conclusion, Mac OSX has done wonders for the Apple community.  It has exposed many a non-unix person to the wonderful world of preemptive multitasking, security, and many other *nix niceties.  Mac OSX has been succesful thus far in hiding UNIX from most of its users...which is fine to a point, but lets not forget the FreeBSD heritage that gives our newest and favorite OS its "balls" so to speak.  There is a lot that we as mac osx hackers can offer back, but lets not be afraid to borrow what others have already offered up long before Mac OSX ever came into being.


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## scruffy (Oct 1, 2002)

BSDimwit - they do seek volunteers to port software.  They just have much smaller manpower than FreeBSD does.  Did you just volunteer yourself?


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## BSDimwit (Oct 1, 2002)

unless its Perl, I probably would be scratching my head more than actually getting a port out the door.  I guess I was speaking more as sysadmin than a programmer.  I find the ports collections to be more convenient than the fink solution.  I guess you see my point though...


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