Fink? X11? ???

Ok guys, I'm new to this. I am starting to learn the terminal. I know a few basic commands. I have played around with various distrus of Linux before, and I know what x11 window system is. At least, I understand the purpose of its existance on Linux.

Here is the thing. I'm interested in playing with all of this stuff on my new PB, but I am slightly confused as to what is what, and what does what. I was originally under the impression that this "Fink" was x11 apps remade to run on my Mac. Before I had heard of "Fink," I believed I could run any x11 app with the x11 available from Apple. Now that I have just downloaded, installed, and started playing with Fink, it appears that they are not even related. I'm slightly confused.

Hopefully you guys can give me some insight as to what is really what, and the purpose it serves. Maybe help me make some connections. Any explinations would be great really. Thanks guys.

yes, i know about man....but im still a little confused about the whole x11 release from apple.....as well as fink. I'm assuming fink is just a way of importing programs that have been remade to run on the darwin kernel.

You're right, Fink installs apps, librarys, and other stuff for X11, Apple's or Xfree86. It puts the stuff in a seperate dir so as not to mess up the system structure. Have you tried FinkCommander? Easier to use than dselect.

What exactly are you having problems with?

ok, well....in that case. i guess my question is, how do I go about running the programs/packages I get with fink. i can open them in my regular terminal for the most part, but when i open x11, and run xterm, i cannot run the fink programs.

Ok, you need to do this:
Put this in .bashrc (should already be there)

. /sw/bin/init.sh

Now, if running a window manager other than quartz, put this in .xinitrc:

source /sw/bin/init.sh

If you're running quartzwm (in other words the way is when you install and run x11 from the finder), pull down the applications menu and select configure. Add a new line and when you enter the command type the whole path to the app like this:

Mozilla /sw/bin/mozilla

If you don't have an .xinitrc file in your home folder, Apple's X11 uses an internal init file which doesn't know anything about Fink. That's why you have to put the complete path in the menu config.

ok thanks, i think i have it figured out now.

another question tho. can i only run x11 apps that fink has recompiled, or does any x11 app work.

A lot of X11 apps can be compiled. Also there are other places with ports besides Fink. Check here:

http://macosx.forked.net/
http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/

Sometimes it just takes a switch on the configure file to get something to compile. For example: ./configure -host=PPC
or something similar.

Normally binaries can't be run 'cause they're for PC's. You need to compile from source. I downloaded the source for a better config app for WindowMaker and it compiled and ran just fine.

Also there is some stuff you just can't get to compile no matter what you do. (at least in my case. i'm not an expert or programmer) Depends on what it is.