# Help! I need to install GNOME.



## ShadowTech (Oct 22, 2003)

Ok, here is my story. I'm trying to install gnome for the purpose of playing GTetrinet (an online tetris game) on my OS 10.2.8 machine.

I have been following this guide. I installed Fink like it told me to. That was easy enough. The next step was to install X. I had put Apple's X11 on my system about a month ago for openoffice. From what I can tell, I don't need to install this "xfree86-base" system. Or do I? The next step in the guide was to install gnome.

This is where I'm really stuck. There isn't any links or clear instructions on how to do this. Can anyone explain how I would do this?

Thanks alot.


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## symphonix (Oct 22, 2003)

If you install Apple's X11, there is a package within Fink called an "X11 Placeholder" - this tells Fink that you already have an X11 system installed, allowing you to install packages that depend on X11 without any trouble. Can't remember the exact name of the package, but it will be under the X11 section of the Fink package selector.


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## naodx (Oct 22, 2003)

The easiest, at least for me, was to get a program called fink commander (found on www.versiontracker.com) it is a gui app for fink.

Then open fink commander and look for the gnome package, and install.

I can't remember how long it took to compile, but it did take a while.

That should do it for you.

Open up X11, and the command is something like start_gnome, or gnome_start, or something like that.

If you have auto completion turned on in the terminal try typing 'start' then hit the tab key to see a list of commands that begin with start. If it isn't there, then try the same with 'gnome'.


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## Cat (Oct 23, 2003)

Steps to take for Gnome:
-Download and install Fink
-Download and install FinkCommander
-Install package "system-XFree86" (Placeholder package for manually installed XFree86)
-Install package "bundle-Gnome" (GNOME convenience package)
-Done!


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## ShadowTech (Oct 23, 2003)

Thanks for the tips, I will try it out!


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## filter (Oct 30, 2003)

naodx said:
			
		

> The easiest, at least for me, was to get a program called fink commander (found on www.versiontracker.com) it is a gui app for fink.
> 
> Then open fink commander and look for the gnome package, and install.
> 
> ...



Is it as easy as that, if so I'm having problems.  Panther user, installed x11 and x11sdk from xCode cd.  Also installed fink, fink installed sw at the top level of my hd.  Installed Fink Commander, clicked on the first icon, the Install Binary Package(s), for system-xfree86, as well as Gnome convenience package, Film Gimp, and Gimp.

From here I'm lost, not sure what to do, startx?, start_gnome?, what should I do to launch Gnome.  I launched x11 and the xterm came up typed in startx-- -rootless, nothing, as well as gnome_start.  Am I supposed to go down to a certain folder until I launch Gnome, what am I doing wrong?  A bit frustrated.  Any help would be great, guru's help out an x11 newb.


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## mr. k (Oct 30, 2003)

ahhh - google is truly a gift.  a google search on 'gnome on mac osx x11' turned up a fairly helpful tutorial with respect to using gnome under os x.  It looks like this guy was trying to do what you were -- run a nice game through GNOME.


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## filter (Oct 30, 2003)

Thanks Mr. K. for the link, ironically it happens to be the same link as the original poster had given as their tutorial.  It also relies on xfree86 which to my understanding is no longer needed, even harmful under x11 for Panther.  I went through the tutorial ignoring the xfree86 stuff and for the life of me I'm not sure if my sw is in the correct area.  

Should fink have installed my sw folder at the top, or in one of my user folders?  Did a find for .xinitrc and came up with nothing.  Hmmm.


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## naodx (Oct 30, 2003)

filter, sorry I missed your previous post. I'm not sure, but from reading what you did, you may have over written part of Apple's x11 install, by installing system-xfree86.

I haven't install gnome on my machine since updating (clean install) to 10.3, however I did install Apple's X11 & X11SDK. 

After installing the latest fink package (fink 0.6.0) I opened fink commander and looked at the list of current installed packages (under the status column). You might want to check the description for your system-xfree86 and see what it says, mine says:

[placeholder for user installed x11]

If you over wrote Apple's X11 install, it should say something different in the description. If so you might want to un-install system-xfree86 under fink/fink commander and try re-installing Apple's X11.

With that said, the only packages you need to install are:

bundle-gnome, gimp, and filmgimp

fink will figure out what other files it is dependent on and install those as well.

After that is done, open up X11 (either via command line or via the Icon/Application in you utilities folder), type in X11's terminal window:

gnome-session-real or gnome-session

to start gnome. I can't remember the exact command, but if you have 'tab-completion' turned on in the terminal, your can type:

gnome (then hit tab once or twice to bring up a list of commands that start with gnome)

that should fire up gnome if it is installed properly. Keep in mind that gnome has to be started up from the X11 terminal window and not just a terminal that you open in the terminal app.

I can't remember adding any .xinitrc file to my home directory when I had gnome installed, so I'm not sure if that is necessary or not. As to not being able to find it, check your path exactly and try again. I may be possible that you lost that file when you installed fink's system-xfree86.

I just checked on my machine and found the file in the path provided by the instructions you followed. Those instructions are very informative but a little outdated since it was written before Apple released X11, and you had to install an xfree86 system via other means.

I hope this information helps you, if you have any other questions, please let me know.


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## mr. k (Oct 30, 2003)

sorry about the double link!  I didn't read the title of the link and made a mistake.
ok I have a little time so here's a quick run thru: (maybe too long, but ok.)

install fink. (sounds like you got this part done already, also fink commander is great.
open up terminal and do this: setenv  PATH=$PATH:/sw/bin:/sw/sbin .  it will add the directory /sw/bin and /sw/sbin (where programs installed by fink are kept) to your default path so all you need to do is type their name at the prompt and they launch.
then install x11.app.  http://apple.com/macosx/features/x11/ .
use fink to grab the 'system-xfree86' package, which tells fink you already have a x11 window system installed and it doesn't need to install one for you.
once fink finishes, now you download the GNOME system.  'bundle-gnome' it's called.
so the fink has done it's job, now a little configuration is in order.  fire up your terminal.app and do 'cp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc'.  This copies the default xinitrc as an invisible file right into your home directory.  then do 'pico ~/.xinitrc', which opens up the file in a real simple text editor.  add the line 'source /sw/bin/init.sh # lets fink play with x11' near the top of the file (after the # it is just a comment).  That line lets programs installed by fink be run according to fink, not just be run.
and now I'm assuming that the tetris you wanted to play has been installed via fink.  open up x11 and go to the x11 menu, the one with the names of the programs in it.  Open up the configure menu and add a program named Tetris (whatever it's called) and give it a command of '. /sw/bin/init.sh ; *emacs*' and replace *emacs* with the name of the app.
Now just as a disclaimer - I haven't done this in awhile due to me having broken my x11 (I quit it while it was opening up a KDE session I think, and it got goofed up).  So this is all by memory.  I also used the above linked document, and fink on mac osx documentation.  I hope this is what you were looking for.
And if anyone has any good ideas on how I can fix my x11 they would be great.


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## filter (Oct 30, 2003)

naodx and Mr. K,

Thanks much for the time and effort.  Gimp and Filmgimp are working fine.  Something I wish I knew before all this started that I don't need Gnome at all for these programs to work.  That may seem obvious to both of you but a program without an OS behind it didn't even come to mind in my own reality. Opened up two xterm terminals typed in gimp in one, and filmgimp in the other and bingo.  Yeah, no cd, ls, moving up or down in the file structure, just the name of the program.... amazingly simple.

What's happening here guys, all this trouble with Gnome and I didn't even need it.  I used naodx's instructions it was the easier of the two, and it worked so I passed up on K's, I think I did overwrite my version of x11 with xfee86 thing.  Though thanks for the response Mr. K., you were plan B.  Both programs on my machine run faster WITHOUT Gnome, why would you want Gnome when you can run these as individual programs within x11 and faster at that.  I'm running both programs in rootless and both look very attractive within Panther.

Mr. K. I'm not the gamer btw, that's the original poster.   Again thanks guys, happily running programs in X11.


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## naodx (Oct 30, 2003)

filter

I'm glad that everything worked out for you, not to sound nit-picky, but Gnome isn't an OS, which is probably why you went through some extra work. Think of Gnome as just the desktop environment for A OS. (Usually for some flavor of linux or unix)

Just like it is possible to run Apple's Darwin (the unix underpinnings of OS X) without using OS X. (Darwin runs on both PPC's and intel chips)

A good thing to remember, is that anything that fink installs, will make sure you have all the files/programs installed that are required to run it. Fink is awesome this way, as it basically (not always) makes installing *nix programs fool proof.


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