macfidelity

Maybe you will reach the point that you need some Linux-based applications like: MC or similar.

Basicly there are two ways to handle this situation:

• Fink
• MacPorts

Today i’ll describe some basic things and steps to get MacPorts working under Mac OS X.

At the beginning a short description of the project. According to Wikipedia it is:

MacPorts, formerly called DarwinPorts, is an open source project to simplify installation of other open source software on the Mac OS X and Darwin operating systems. Similar to Fink, DarwinPorts was started in 2002 as part of the OpenDarwin project, with the involvement of a number of Apple Computer employees including Landon Fuller, Kevin Van Vechten, and Jordan Hubbard.

It allows the installation of a number of packages by simply entering port install packagename command in the Terminal, which will then download, compile and install the requested software, while also installing any required dependencies automatically.

On April 28, 2005, the project released version 1.0 of their software which supports approximately 2500 ports. Version 1.2.1 was released on April 1, 2006, providing over 3200 ports. Version 1.3.1, released on July 31, 2006, supports 3420 ports. The most recent version is 1.3.2, released on August 30, 2006

Installation:ï � �
There are two methods to install MacPorts on OS X. Downloading and compiling the source-code out of the Trac Subversion or just simply get a dmg.

I would always prefer the *.dmg method…but only as i am a lazy person :P.
Keep in mind that even the *.dmg way is not as simple as most other software installations

1. Install Xcode Tools (get it at the Apple developer site or from your installation medium)
2. Install Xwindows X11 (get it from your installation medium)
3. Define SHELL environment
4. Install Macports *.dmg

A detailed howto can be found in the MacPorts Wiki.

First Steps:
After your installtion you first need to sync your local installtion with the online sources. Open your terminal and type:

port selfpdate

Packages search and installation:
After running the “sudo port selfupdate” or “sudo port -v selfupdate” command you are ready to install other applications out of the MacPorts sources.

You can search packages using the following command:

sudo port search PACKAGENAME

You can install the package using:

sudo port install PACKAGENAME

Some additional Links:

• MacPorts Wiki

• Mac ::: SSHKeychain
• MacPorts ::: Cmatrix
• Mac ::: the notMac Challenge

This entry was posted on Friday, November 10th, 2006 at 11:47 pm and is filed under How to, Terminal, mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.