OStatic

Many reporters and bloggers have reported on the fact that a growing number of programmers, including many prominent open source personalities, have switched to Macintosh computers. I should know; I'm one of them, having switched away from a Linux laptop back in 2004 to my current PowerBook G4. It thus shouldn't come as a surprise that OS X not only comes with a large number of open source programs, but that downloading and installing many favorite open source packages is easy on this platform.

If you are only interested in the basics, then OS X comes with many of them: Perl, Python, Ruby, and Apache are all available from the moment you install the operating system, and are fairly up to date. Many popular third-party modules and libraries for these open source languages are available as well, in the standard /Library folder.

The real adventure begins when you want to install additional third-party applications. You can, of course, download and compile them from source, using the built-in C compiler that you get with the free OS X developer tools. But there are two easier options, MacPorts and Fink, which ensure that the source will not only compile, but be tracked and upgradeable in an easy and clear fashion. I have opted for the latter, mostly because I'm under the impression that it contains a larger number of packages, and also because it uses the Debian packaging system, which I generally find to be easy to use.

To install Fink, you simply go to http://www.finkproject.org/ and install a small package. This package creates the /sw directory, in which all of Fink's programs and configuration files reside, and then does an initial download of the basic Fink software. When the installation is done, the "fink" command is available to you, letting you list a large number of open-source programs, as well as download and configure them for your own use.

For example, to install PostgreSQL, you can simply type "fink install postgresql83". This will install the server; there are separate packages for developers who want to develop with the database.

In order to refresh the Fink software itself, as well as the repository it uses, you will have to type "fink selfupdate". This retrieves the latest version of Fink, downloads it, and installs it in place of the existing version. If you are willing to live on the edge, you can even opt to use the latest CVS version of Fink, retrieving it from the same repository as the Fink developers use.

You can update all of the installed Fink packages on your system with a simple "fink update-all". I tend to run this several times per week, and it never ceases to amaze me to discover just how often these packages are updated.

There is a GUI client for Fink, which gives you the same options as the command line, but in a more Mac-like package.

Many programs on Fink are alternative versions to programs that are available on the Mac's core system. For example, I prefer the GNU versions of the various file-related utilities, such as "ls" and "cp". To install them, I simply typed "fink install fileutils". The original BSD-derived versions are still on my system, but because /sw/bin has higher priority in my path, I use the GNU version by default. The same is true for many other programs installed by Fink. You can, of course, choose which versions to install under Fink, and which to leave as their defaults.

If you like open source software and use a Mac, you owe it to yourself to try Fink or MacPorts.

• open source
• os x
• gui
• debian
• packages