Fink RSS News Feeds: [These Headlines] [Package Updates]
2023-09-23: Support for macOS 11 through macOS 13
The main source branch for Fink development supports macOS 11 through macOS 13, under both intel (x86_64) and Apple's M1 and M2 (arm64) CPUs.
Final work on a full release is ongoing. As there isn't a full release tarball yet, you need to download and install the code from git with these commands in Terminal.app:
mkdir -p ~/src cd src git clone https://github.com/fink/fink fink-upstream cd fink-upstream
If updating an existing Fink install, run ./inject.pl from the Terminal prompt. If doing a fresh install, run ./bootstrap.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.45.6. This is a quick release to fix a bug introduced in fink-0.45.5 (issue #240).
This release does not yet support macOS 11 (Big Sur) or macOS 12 (Monterey). Support for those two releases is coming soon.
2021-11-03: fink-0.45.4 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.45.4. This is a minor upgrade to support XQuartz 2.8.
This release does not yet support macOS 11 (Big Sur) or macOS 12 (Monterey). Support for those two releases is coming soon.
2021-03-06: fink-0.45.3 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.45.3. This is a minor behavioral fix for an issue introduced in 0.45.2. With this release, the default prefix for new installs is reverted to /sw for all macOS versions from 10.14 and earlier. Newer releases still default to /opt/sw. This will allow installs on macOS 10.14 and earlier to continue to use any available binary distributions. There are no other functional changes in this release compared to fink-0.45.2.
This release does not yet support macOS 11 (Big Sur).
2020-10-02: fink-0.45.2 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.45.2. This release provides support for all macOS releases up to and including 10.15.7. Most importantly, it changes the default install path location to /opt/sw for all supported macOS releases. This release also fixes bootstrapping problems when installing on macOS 10.15 with Xcode12. Run fink selfupdate to install the latest version. This release does not need any special preparation apart from those listed below if upgrading to macOS 10.15 from an earlier macOS release.
This release does not yet support macOS 11 (Big Sur).
2020-03-28: fink-0.45.1 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.45.1. This release provides support for all macOS releases up to and including 10.15.4, as well as support for users running the zsh shell. Run fink selfupdate to install the latest version. This release does not need any special preparation apart from those listed below if upgrading to macOS 10.15 from an earlier macOS release.
If upgrading to macOS 10.15 (Catalina) from an earlier macOS release, your existing Fink install will cease to work if installed outside /opt (such as to the previous default /sw) and must be reinstalled from scratch using Fink release 0.45.0 or later.
The old Fink install is archived into /Users/Shared/Relocated Items. It's possible to manually recover downloaded source archives and configuration files from there to use in a new Fink install. However, it's not possible to reuse built .deb packages because they hardcode the original path that contained Fink.
Upgrade and installation hints if existing Fink install is outside /opt:
- If doing a fresh Fink install on any macOS version, install Fink into
/opt/sw. - If you haven't yet updated to macOS 10.15, run this command to capture the list of your currently installed packages:
for i in `/bin/ls -1 /sw/var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list`; do basename -s .list $i >> ~/my_fink_packages.txt; done. - If you have already updated to macOS 10.15 but had Fink installed somewhere outside
/optbefore your system upgrade, use the above command (with modified path to the "Relocated Items" location as necessary) to capture the packages you previously had installed on your older macOS release. For example:for i in `/bin/ls -1 "/Users/Shared/Relocated Items/sw/var/lib/dpkg/info/"*.list`; do basename -s .list $i >> ~/my_fink_packages.txt; done - Once you have captured your list of previous packages, upgraded to macOS 10.15, and installed Fink into
/opt, run the following command to batch build and reinstall your previous Fink packages:cat ~/my_fink_packages.txt | xargs fink reinstall. Note that some packages do not exist on macOS 10.15, so you might need to hand edit the filemy_fink_packages.txtto remove the missing packages before trying to reinstall.
Fink 0.45.0 and up support the upcoming 10.15 release, but there are some important things to note:
- Apple locked down the
/ (root)directory where Fink normally installs (in/swby default), so existing Fink installs may become read-only upon updating to 10.15. - Xcode11 introduces some known breakages (with no known fixes at this time) to important packages like gcc, so not everything will build yet.
Once macOS 10.15 is officially released, we suggest waiting to upgrade until we know how the system will treat existing installs and we can determine the best upgrade path.
For anyone installing Fink for the first time (on 10.15beta or an earlier macOS version), we now recommend using /opt/sw as the install location, since that's known to work. The next Fink release after macOS 10.15 is out will use /opt/sw as the default install location.
Xcode11 is known to currently break building the gccX and several other important packages. If possible (especially 10.14 users), hold off on upgrading to Xcode11 unless you need something specific from it. If you do upgrade to Xcode11, make sure that the Command Line Tools are also upgraded to version 11 for your macOS release.
2019-08-05: fink-0.45.0 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.45.0. This release provides support for macOS 10.14.5 and up, including preliminary support for macOS 10.15beta. This release also provides full support for .app bundles in APFS volumes.
If your system is still on macOS 10.14.4 or earlier:
- In a terminal window, run
fink selfupdateand installfink-0.45.0. - Update to the latest version of Mojave.
- In a terminal window, run
fink reinstall fink.
If you have already updated to macOS 10.14.5:
- In a terminal window, run
fink selfupdateand installfink-0.45.0.
Thanks to the work of Fink members Chris Z and Justin H, the finkmirrors.net domain is operational once again.
We are looking for new mirror owners to extend our mirroring service. If you can host a Fink mirror, see the main Fink Mirrors site for instructions and requirements.
Thank you for your patience.
2019-05-30: Issues with macOS 10.14.5 Apple's release of macOS 10.14.5 updated the system perl version from 5.18.2 to 5.18.4. This update broke bootstrapping fresh installs, as well as existing perl modules dependent on perl-5.18.2.
Fixes for Fink working on macOS 10.14.5 are tracked on GitHub.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
2019-03-14: fink-0.44.1 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.44.1. This is primarily a bugfix release to fix bootstrapping or using the Install Fink.tool script, but with some additional optimization updates behind the scenes. Usefink selfupdate to install it.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9-10.13 to 10.14 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9-10.13. Don't update your OS yet.
1) In a terminal window, run fink selfupdate and install fink-0.44.1
2) Update to Mojave.
3) In a terminal window, run fink reinstall fink.
Fink's finkmirrors.net domain is currently down. This will affect users selfupdating via rsync, as well as those using the binary distribution.
In order to keep your Fink distribution up to date, please run the following commands:
- Run
fink selfupdate-gitto change your update method from rsync to git. - Run
fink configureto turn off using the binary to download pre-compiled packages.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
2019-01-16: fink-0.44.0 released The Fink Project has released fink-0.44.0. This release now supports macOS 10.14 (Mojave), as well as Java 10. Usefink selfupdate to install it.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9-10.13 to 10.14 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9-10.13. Don't update your OS yet.
1) In a terminal window, run fink selfupdate and install fink-0.44.0
2) Update to Mojave.
3) In a terminal window, run fink reinstall fink.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.43.1. This is a bugfix release. Usefink selfupdate to install it.
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating fink, follow the "Fixing updates when you have installed High Sierra before updating fink" instructions below, and then run fink selfupdate again.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.43.0. This release supports using
git or svn to update packages instead of cvs, particularly to
work through firewalls via HTTPS. Use fink selfupdate-git or
fink selfupdate-svn to switch to one of those methods.
This release officially supports 10.9.0-10.13.4. It also enhances support for Oracle's
Java 9 as well as the 2017 release of Apple's legacy Java.
In addition, it incorporates other bug fixes and enhancements.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9-10.12 to 10.13 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9-10.12. Don't update your OS yet.
1) In a terminal window, run fink selfupdate and install fink-0.42.0
2) Update to High Sierra.
3) In a terminal window, run fink reinstall fink.
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating fink, follow the "Fixing updates when you have installed High Sierra before updating fink" instructions below, and then run fink selfupdate again.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.42.0 to provide High Sierra (10.13) support.
This release officially supports 10.9.0-10.13.0. It also adds support for Oracle's Java 9.
In addition, it incorporates other bug fixes and enhancements.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9-10.12 to 10.13 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9-10.12. Don't update your OS yet.
1) In a terminal window, run fink selfupdate and install fink-0.42.0
2) Update to High Sierra.
3) In a terminal window, run fink reinstall fink.
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating fink, follow the "Fixing updates when you have installed High Sierra before updating fink" instructions below, and then run fink selfupdate again.
If you have updated to High Sierra before updating fink, your fink command
won't be able to function any more. Fortunately, a workaround is now available.
1) Download an updated fink.
2) In a terminal window, run sudo dpkg -i fink_0.42.0-121_darwin-x86_64.deb from the directory where you downloaded the file.
Because of a recent Sourceforge outage, we haven't been able to do a proper fink
release that supports High Sierra. However, since the fink source on
Github isn't affected by this, it is possible to get a pre-release version out of our
git repository and install that.
The following sequence of steps should allow you to update your Fink installation on 10.9 (Mavericks) or later for High Sierra. 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or earlier have no supported upgrade path.
0) Don't update your OS yet!
1) Download a copy of the repository archive and uncompress it if your browser doesn't do that automatically.
2) Open a Terminal window and change to the resulting fink-master directory
e.g. cd ~/Downloads/fink-master .
3) Run the command sudo ./inject.pl to update fink.
4) Update your OS to High Sierra.
5) Open a Terminal window and run fink reinstall fink to reset your distribution.
For new installs on High Sierra:
1) Install the Xcode 9 command-line tools by running sudo xcode-select --install
in a Terminal window.
2) Install the latest JDK from Oracle, e.g. by running javac in a Terminal
window.
3) Follow steps 1-2) from the upgrade instructions above.
4) Run sudo ./bootstrap
5) The default bootstrap operation will error out at the end for the time being, until
an official High Sierra binary distribution has been uploaded. Go ahead and run
/sw/bin/pathsetup.sh as usual, however.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.41.1 to help us deal with adjustments
to the libXt library from XQuartz via the use of the XQuartz version in the system-xfree86*
packages, and to support OS X 10.12.1 .
The Fink Project has released fink-0.41.0 to provide Sierra (10.12) support.
This release officially supports 10.9.0-10.12.0 and incorporates other bug fixes and enhancements.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9 or 10.10 to 10.12 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9 or 10.10.
1) fink cleanup --deb
2) fink selfupdate
4) Update to 10.12
5) fink reinstall fink
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating fink, see if you can install
fink-0.41.0 for your former distribution by using sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get install fink
and then use fink reinstall fink to switch your distribution.
Otherwise you can download a
.deb archive manually, and install it using
sudo dpkg -i fink_0.41.1-111_darwin-x86_64.deb from the directory where
you downloaded it, then use fink reinstall fink to update the distribution.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.39.5 for 10.9-10.11. This
officially supports 10.9.0-10.11.6, and among other fixes and enhancements it
switches from using otool to otool-classic to maintain
compatibility with Xcode 8.
The Fink Project has created a github branch named sierra-alpha-bravo
for 10.12 development. This is accessible via git as well as through the
branch webpage.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.39.4 for 10.9-10.11. This
officially supports 10.9.0-10.11.5 and incorporates bug fixes and enhancements.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9 or 10.10 to 10.11 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9 or 10.10.
1) fink cleanup --deb
2) fink selfupdate
3) fink selfupdate
4) Update to 10.11
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating Fink, you can download a
.deb archive , and install it using
sudo dpkg -i fink_0.39.4-101_darwin-x86_64.deb from the directory where
you downloaded it.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.39.2 for 10.9-10.11. This
incorporates bug fixes and enhancements.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9 or 10.10 to 10.11 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9 or 10.10.
1) fink cleanup --deb
2) fink selfupdate
3) fink selfupdate
4) Update to 10.11
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating Fink, you can download a
.deb archive , and install it using
sudo dpkg -i fink_0.39.2-101_darwin-x86_64.deb from the directory where
you downloaded it.
The Fink Project has released fink-0.39.0 to support OS X El Capitan
(10.11).
This release also switches the distribution tree used by fink on 10.9 and 10.10.
The best update sequence from going to 10.9 or 10.10 to 10.11 is as follows:
0) Start on 10.9 or 10.10.
1) fink cleanup --deb
2) fink selfupdate
3) fink selfupdate
4) Update to 10.11
If you happen to have updated your OS X before updating Fink, you can download a
.deb archive , and install it using
sudo dpkg -i fink_0.39.0-101_darwin-x86_64.deb from the directory where
you downloaded it.
Support for OSX 10.11 beta is now available in Fink master, but not yet in release. This can be downloaded from fink's github site.
2008-08-15: fink-0.38.7 released
fink-0.38.7 was released on 15 August, 2015. This release supports
OS X up to 10.10.
We now have CVS access back for services including selfupdate, package updates, and website updates.
2015-06-13: fink-0.38.6 and dpkg-base-files-0.4 released.
fink-0.38.6 was released on 13 June, 2015. This release fixes an
issue which prevented bootstrapping on Yosemite (or later) using Xcode newer
than 6.2 .
dpkg-base-files-0.4 was also released on 13 June, 2015. This update
mitigates an issue in which packages with app bundles couldn't be updated on
Yosemite:
unable to make backup link of `.%p/Applications/FOO.app/Contents/PkgInfo' before installing new version: Operation not permitted
Users are encouraged to run fink selfupdate and install these new versions.
If you are interested in helping us with the migration to 10.11, a current released fink won't do the job. A branch has been set up on fink's github site for this.
Please note that right now we are in an alpha stage and you might need to wipe your Fink distribution out a as stuff gets changed around.
2015-05-14: fink-0.38.5 released.
fink-0.38.5 was released on 14 May, 2015. This release enables
official OS X 10.10.3 support, and reverts a change made in fink-0.38.4
to restore the requirement that the /usr/X11R6 convenience symlink be present for
the x11* virtual packages to be active.
It also downgrades building libraries with flat namespace from a fatal validation error to a warning, since some packages require such a build. There are a number of additional validation enhancements as well. Check the commit logs on fink's github site for additional information.
2014-11-29: fink-0.38.3 released.
fink-0.38.3 was released on 29 November, 2014. This release enables the
official 10.10 binary distribution by default, along with official OS X 10.10.1 support
and other fixes and enhancements.
fink-0.38.0 was released on 18 October, 2014.
The Fink Project announces official support for Yosemite (OS X 10.10) with
the release of fink-0.38.0.
10.9 users who want to upgrade their Fink installations in place from 10.9 to 10.10
may do so. To do so, you must install fink-0.38.0 (or later) on 10.9
before updating to 10.10. We don't support upgrading Fink on 10.8 or earlier to 10.10.
fink-0.37.1 was released on 20 September, 2014.
This release fixes bootstrapping on 10.9 under Xcode 6.x, among other fixes and
enhancements.
In addition, this release adds official 10.9.4 and 10.9.5 support.
fink-0.37.0 and fink-0.37.0 were released on 4 June, 2014.
These fink releases contain fixes for Java detection on 10.6 if older
versions of Apple's Java SDK are installed. fink-0.37.0 officially
recognizes OS 10.9.3. In addition, Fink's compiler wrappers are
now installed directly by the fink package to make for easier modifications.
fink-0.36.5 marks the end of 10.6 support by the Fink Project. Users
who want package updates should contact the maintainers of the respective packages.
Unmaintained packages can be updated by request as well.
fink-0.36.4 was released on 6 April, 2014.
This fink release restores the use of an official binary distribution by
default on 10.8 and 10.9 (if distributions are created for 10.6 and 10.7
those will be supported, too). In addition, it works around the multiple
build failures introduced by Xcode 5.1 on 10.8 and 10.9. This release also includes
official support for OS X 10.9.2, fixes the bootstrap operation when Xcode.app isn't
present, and makes x86_64 the default architecture for 10.6 bootstraps.
Users are encouraged to run fink selfupdate to install this version of
fink, particularly in view of the Xcode 5.1 build issues.
We've been having issues with the master rsync server, which haven't been
resolved as of yet. Unfortunately, this affects all but two of the other
servers. To work around this problem, edit /sw/etc/fink.conf
as an administrator and change your Mirror-rsync setting to one of
rsync://ber.de.eu.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/ rsync://hnd.jp.asi.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/
or use fink selfupdate-cvs to switch your update method.
fink-0.36.3.1 was released on 30 December, 2013.
This release includes official support for OS X 10.9.1, and fixes an
issue in which the fink couldn't directly access official or unofficial
binary distributions on 64-bit platforms. It also fixes an issue with
32-bit platforms which was introduced in fink-0.36.3.
fink-0.36.1 was released on 17 November, 2013.
This release fixes an intermittent bug in building Perl modules
which was introduced with fink-0.36.0. We encourage our users to
install fink-0.36.1 to rectify this issue, and if you are having
problems with installing a Perl module, use fink rebuild
on it.
In addition, the bootstrap script now validates whether the Mavericks command-line build tools are installed on that OS version, and prevents folks from bootstrapping with the wrong tools.
2013-10-31: fink-0.36.0 released
fink-0.36.0 was released on 31 October, 2013.
This is the first release to work with OS X 10.9 (Mavericks).
We are currently in the process of making packages available.
fink-0.35.2 was released on 27 September, 2013.
This release provides support for Xcode 5 on 10.8, and other
bugfixes
fink-0.34.9 and fink-0.35.0 were released on 5 July, 2013.
These releases contain improvements to tar file extraction and Java detection., along
with other fixes and enhancements. fink-0.35.0 also formally recognizes
OS 10.8.4.
fink-0.34.9 is the last version that supports OS 10.5 (Leopard). The
Fink Project has officially discontinued support for that OS version.
fink-0.34.8 was released on 8 May, 2013. This release expands upon
the fix from 0.34.7, improves fink list --format=dotty-build, along with
other improvements.
fink-0.34.7 was released on 29 March, 2013. This release addresses
an issue in which tar hangs for certain root access methods.
fink-0.34.6 was released on 16 March, 2013. This release supports
OS 10.8.3.
fink-0.34.5 was released on 28 January, 2013. In addition to some
other improvements, this release addresses an issue with detecting the version of
the clang compiler from Xcode 4.6 and later.
Sourceforge is currently down. Check the SF.net Operations Twitter feed and the Finkers blog for status updates.
For folks who aren't behind firewalls, the best recommendation is to use
fink selfupdate-rsync since that is currently functional. If you are
behind a firewall, the best short-term workaround is probably to ask for specific
updated package description files by contacting the maintainer
directly.
The mailing lists and bug tracker are also down, so as an interim solution please file bug reports for unmaintained packages (only) as comments to the Finkers entry. For maintained packages, send reports to the maintainer.
Addendum: 2012-12-12: Anonymous CVS is working again.
2012-11-30: Issues with sourceforge CVS Sourceforge's anonymous CVS is currently down. It is not currently clear when it is going to be restored. In addition, the web interface is not being updated.
For folks who aren't behind firewalls, the best recommendation is to use
fink selfupdate-rsync since that is currently functional. If you're
behind a firewall, the best short-term workaround is probably to ask for specific
updated package description files on the mailing lists or by contacting the maintainer
directly.
Addendum: 2012-12-07: Anonymous CVS is working again.
2012-09-25: fink-0.34.4 relased fink-0.34.4 was released on 25 September, 2012. This release adds diagnostics to make
sure that the permissions of directories that fink uses when building packages are appropriate.
Additionally, OS X versions 10.7.5 and 10.8.2 are recognized.
Mountain Lion is now available to the general public. Ideally, users should update
to fink-0.34.0 or later before updating their OS. In addition, Xcode 4.4
(or at least its command line tools) is required--it can be installed under Lion, but
there is a separate version of the Command Line Tools for Mountain Lion, so make sure
to install those. Use
fink list xcode
to verify that you have the
Xcode 4.4 command-line tools installed, and that Fink knows where your Xcode.app is.
If the CLI tools are missing or not for Xcode 4.4, reinstall them, e.g. via the Xcode
Preferences. If fink isn't finding your Xcode.app, use
sudo xcode-select -switch /path/to/Xcode.app
to make sure that your system's tools are pointing to the right place. Also run
sudo xcodebuild -license
to make sure that the Xcode license is accepted globally on your system, especially for fink's build user.
Once you have updated the OS, use
fink reinstall fink
to point it to the 10.8 distribution, and run
fink install perl5123-core
to make sure any Perl modules you have from Lion will still work.
If you updated the OS first,
and have an earlier version of fink which doesn't know about Mountain Lion, you
have probably found that it doesn't work. To work around this issue, do the
following: (1) download an updated copy of
Services.pm, (2) move the downloaded file into /sw/lib/perl5/Fink, such as
via
sudo mv /path/to/Services.pm /sw/lib/perl5/Fink
;
(change /sw and /path/to to match
your particular setup); (3) run
fink selfupdate
, which should
download and install fink-0.34.0; (4) use
fink reinstall fink
to ensure that fink is pointing at the 10.8 distribution,
and (5) install perl5123-core
as above.
Addendum, 2012-07-26: It appears that the OS update wipes out the users that Fink creates (but not the groups). After following the steps above, you should (1) Run
fink configure
to set the Fink build user back up, and (2) use
fink list -it passwd | cut -f2 | xargs fink reinstall
to reinstall
the various passwd* packages and their users.
fink-0.34.0 was released on 16 July, 2012. This is the first
release to support Mountain Lion (OS 10.8).
Until Mountain Lion is available to the general public, we ask that users submit bug reports to the Fink Seed List, which has been set up in such a manner as to to avoid violating the NDA.
2012-07-05: fink-0.33.3 released fink-0.33.3 was released on 5 July, 2012. This release fixes a bug
whereby fink wouldn't build packages as the fink-bld user
(i.e. most packages) if certain su or sudo options were
chosen. In addition, packages now log the md5 sums of all of their files for diagnostic
purposes. And users who are only using the Xcode Command-Line Tools will enjoy not
seeing frequent messages that Xcode.app can't be found.
fink-0.33.0 was released on 6 June, 2012. This release introduces some new
features:
Starting with this version of fink, packages will be built as an unprivileged
user by default, which prevents the build process from installing files in the rest of the
filesystem. (Prior to fink-0.33.0 we relied on maintainers to test their packages
using this method). Users may find that some packages don't build in this mode, so we appreciate
feedback, as always, to help us find and correct problems.
In addition, we have added some additional options for maintainers in this Fink version.
/sw/Library/Python has been added to the list of valid directories in a package, to
provide a unified location to install modules built against a built-in Python. There is
now an xcode.app virtual package for packages that use xcodebuild
to BuildDepend upon. Its version is the version of Xcode.app. The xcode
virtual package has always been based on the presence of the command-line tools, and now its
version is the version of those. Note that xcode and xcode.app
are the same for Xcodes prior to 4.3.
fink-0.32.6 was released on 14 April, 2012. This release introduces
a new package description field, BuildAsNobody: false, to mark packages which
cannot built using fink --build-as-nobody. Currently, this does not
have any effect, but in fink-0.33.0 and later we will begin building packages
as an unprivileged user by default, and this field will allow packages to be built
as root.
fink-0.32.5.5 was released on 9 April, 2012. This bugfix release
fixes an issue with bootstrapping on 10.5/PowerPC.
fink-0.32.5.4 was released on 8 April, 2012. This release allows users
on 10.7 to bootstrap against the Xcode Command Line Tools. Note that some packages
actually require the full Xcode to build.
fink-0.32.4.1 was released on 27 March, 2012. This
release allows users to install Xcode 4.3.x in an arbitrary location.
After installing Xcode 4.3.x, users should: (1) Select the Components pane from Xcode->Preferences->Downloads and install the Command Line Tools, or install them via the separate installer from connect.apple.com, and (2) run
sudo xcode-select -switch /path/to/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
(replacing /path/to with the actual path to the Xcode app) to make sure that everything is pointed in the right place.
fink-0.32.4.1 also enhances the checksumming operation under
fink fetch.
fink-0.32.3 was released on 16 February, 2012. This
release recognizes changes that were made for Xcode 4.3.
After installing Xcode 4.3 in /Applications (and only there)
, users should: (1) Select the Components pane from Xcode->Preferences->Downloads and
install the Command Line Tools, or install them via the separate installer from
connect.apple.com, and (2) run
sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
to make sure that everything is pointed in the right place.
2012-02-03: fink-0.32.2 released fink-0.32.2 was released on 3 February, 2012. This
release contains a fix for a bug in the handling of multiple source
archives in a package, and recognizes OS 10.7.3.
fink-0.32.1 was released on 26 January, 2012. This
release introduces a number of new features.
Those that impact package maintainers include: RuntimeDepends,
which are dependencies that are only required when a package is installed,
improvements to the package validator, updated manpages, and direct support
for .xz archives.
Those that impact users include improvements in the bootstrap script and additional helpful suggestions in the post-error output.
2012-01-03: fink-0.31.6 released fink-0.31.6 was released on 3 January, 2012. This
is a bugfix release to address issues with the use of HTTP proxies
under cvs selfupdates.
fink-0.31.5 was released to the 10.4/stable and
10.7/stable trees on 22 November, 2011. This is a bugfix release to
address bootstrapping and building on OS X 10.6 with Xcode 4.2.
fink-0.31.4 was released to the 10.4/stable and
10.7/stable trees on 28 October, 2011. The primary new feature
in this release is to ensure that the default compiler on OS X 10.6
is the same for Xcode 3.2.x and 4.2. In addition, the versions of some
of the other essential packages which get installed at bootstrap have
been updated.
fink-0.31.3 was released to the 10.4/stable and
10.7/stable trees on 12 October, 2011. It recognizes OS 10.7.2 as a
supported OS X version, and recognizes Growl 1.3 from the App Store.
To make our logistics easier, as well as to make the user experience
better, we have begun to phase out the unstable tree. Users won't notice
any difference unless they have deactivated stable in the
Trees: line of fink.conf, which was never a
recommended course of action.
fink-0.31.2 was released to the 10.4/unstable and
10.7/stable trees on 26 September, 2011. Packages are now built by default
using the number of parallel threads specified by the MaxBuildJobs
field set via fink configure. In addition, maintainers no longer
have to specify a particular version of fink to use a
PatchFile, and fixes a Perl issue.
It is expected that the package will be added to 10.4/stable shortly.
2011-09-11: fink-0.31.1 released fink-0.31.1 was released to the 10.4/unstable and
10.7/stable trees on
11 September, 2011. It fixes an issue in which 32-bit machines running OS
10.6 wouldn't be allowed to bootstrap, even though this is a fully supported
configuration. It also provides a more robust scheme to report on the
Xcode version in error messages than in prior fink versions.
Finally OS 10.7.1 is recognized as a supported OS version.
It is expected that the package will be added to 10.4/stable shortly.
Update, 2011-09-26: It has been added to 10.4/stable.
2011-07-20: Fink and Lion--updated. OS X 10.7 "Lion" was released on July 20, 2011. We want to let Fink users know what to expect if updating.
First, the fink
program itself will not run on a system which has
been upgraded to Lion, so it is not possible currently to update a Fink
installation in place. However, is possible to use the
dpkg program to extract a list of the Fink packages
which had been installed under 10.6, so that they can be reinstalled
under 10.7. Use
dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 > fink_packages.txt
before updating to 10.7 to dump the package names to a text file, and
cat fink_packages.txt | xargs fink install
once you have installed Fink on 10.7.
To upgrade Fink after upgrading to Lion, one will have to bootstrap
Fink again, using a tarball for fink-0.31.0 or later. If you want
to use the same directory (e.g. /sw) for Fink that you were using on 10.6, you'll
need to remove that before bootstrapping, since the bootstrap doesn't allow you
to overwrite an existing Fink tree.
Second, due to lots of changes under the hood, there currently are many fewer Fink packages which build under 10.7 as opposed to 10.6. Thus, even if you've extracted a list of Fink packages which had been installed under 10.6, some of them may not yet be installable under 10.7. We are currently creating a database showing which packages can be successfully installed under 10.7, and work is ongoing to add packages.
10.7 introduces several drastic changes to how the system works. While this may cause a slight delay in full Fink functionality in the short term, it will make Fink work better in the future.
2011-07-16: Fink and Lion. Apple has announced that OS X 10.7 "Lion" will be released in July. We want to let Fink users know what to expect when Lion is released.
First, the fink
program itself will not run on a system which has
been upgraded to Lion. However, it will be possible to use the
dpkg program to extract a list of the Fink packages
which had been installed under 10.6, so that they can be reinstalled
under 10.7. Use
dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 > fink_packages.txt
to extract the packages, and
cat fink_packages.txt | xargs fink install
once you have installed Fink for 10.7.
(To upgrade fink after upgrading to Lion, one will have to bootstrap fink again, using a new version of fink which will be released shortly after Lion has been released. Watch this space for an announcement.)
Second, due to lots of changes under the hood, there will initially be many fewer Fink packages which work under 10.7 as opposed to 10.6. Thus, even if you've extracted a list of Fink packages which had been installed under 10.6, some of them may not yet be installable under 10.7. We are currently creating a database showing which packages can be successfully installed under 10.7, but that database may not be complete prior to the release of Lion.
10.7 introduces several drastic changes to how the system works. While this may cause a slight delay in full Fink functionality in the short term, it will make Fink work better in the future.
2011-07-11: fink-0.30.2 released. fink-0.30.2 was released to the unstable tree on 11 July, 2011.
It is likely that this will be the last version that supports OS 10.4.
It is planned to release it to stable soon.
Update, 2011-07-15: It has been added to stable.
2011-06-28: fink-0.30.1 released. fink-0.30.1 was released to the unstable tree on 28 June, 2011.
This is a minor update which properly recognizes OS 10.6.8.
It is planned to release it to stable soon.
Update, 2011-07-02: It has been added to stable.
2011-04-30: fink-0.30.0 released. fink-0.30.0 was released to the unstable tree on 30 April, 2011.
The 0.30.x series is intended to be the last to support OS 10.4 (Tiger).
2011-03-24: fink-0.29.21 released. Version 0.29.21 of the fink package manager has just been
released to the unstable tree. This version of fink
properly recognizes OS 10.6.7, and contains a bugfix for a situation
where fink can't index.
It is expected that this version of fink will be added to the stable tree shortly.
Update, 2011-03-29: It has been added to stable.
2011-03-09: fink-0.29.20 released.
Version 0.29.20 of the fink package manager has just been
released to the unstable tree. This version of fink
fixes an issue with X11 detection against recent versions of
Xquartz
on Leopard.
Unless other updates are made in the near term, it is expected that this
version of fink will be added to the stable tree shortly.
Update, 2011-03-24: It has been added to stable.
2011-02-10: CVS access restored. Checkouts and commits now work again. Thanks for your patience.
2011-01-26: CVS access is down. Due to an attack, our files are not accessible via CVS from Sourceforge. For status updates check out the Project sourceforge page.
2011-01-16: fink-0.29.19 released. Version 0.29.19 of the fink package manager has just been
released to the unstable tree. This version of fink
features more verbose output from 'fink --version' for debugging purposes,
as well as recognizing OS 10.6.6. (Version 0.29.17 works fine
on 10.6.6, however.)
It is expected that this version will migrate to the stable tree soon, provided that there are no reports of bad behavior from unstable tree users.
Update, 2011-01-22: fink-0.29.19 has been added to stable.
We are experiencing a temporary failure in some of the rsync mirrors.
If you have not seen updates in a while, then you may wish to change your
rsync mirror for the time being by editing /sw/etc/fink.conf as a superuser
and replacing the line that starts with Mirror-rsync with
Mirror-rsync: rsync://fink.gecko.ig42.org/finkinfo/
or
Mirror-rsync: rsync://hnd.jp.asi.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/
or
Mirror-rsync: rsync://ber.de.eu.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo
or
Mirror-rsync: rsync://ams.nl.eu.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/
If you prefer, you can select the latter three of the above mirrors via fink configure
as well: choose Asia (option 2) as your continent, Japan (10) as your country,
and rsync://distfiles.hnd.jp.asi.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/ (2) as the Rsync Selfupdate mirror;
or choose Europe (4), then Germany (13) and rsync://ber.de.eu.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/
(3) as the rsync mirror, or Netherlands (27) and
rsync://distfiles.ams.nl.eu.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/ (2) as your rsync mirror.
Update, 2011-01-07 The mirrors are updating again.
2010-12-31: Happy 10th Birthday to Fink! The Fink project was started in the waning days of December 2000 by Christoph Pfisterer, using the "public beta" release of Mac OS X. Within a year, versions 10.0 and 10.1 of OS X had been released, and Fink usage took off. Our founder chrisp stepped away from the project in November 2001, and the community took over.
The Fink community is the heart of Fink, involving both package maintainers and Fink users, as well as the small core team which tries to keep the overall system in good shape. The success of this community in keeping Fink viable and active over ten years is really quite remarkable! Let's all join together to keep Fink going for a long time to come.
How long? In the memorable words of Buzz Lightyear: To Infinity
and Beyond!
fink-0.29.16 has been released to the unstable tree.
This version of fink updates the versions of packages used for bootstrapping.
It is planned to add this version of fink to the stable tree shortly.
dpkg-1.10.21-1229 has been added to stable. This
revision automatically cleans up libtool archive (.la)
files, which have historically caused problems for folks upgrading from 10.5
to 10.6.
KDE-3.5.10 and GNOME-2.28
have been added to the stable tree, along with updates to some important
dependencies.
fink-0.29.15 has been released to the unstable tree.
This version of fink contains fixes to the system-java-dev
virtual package generation.
Users will also need to download an appropriate version of the Java Developer Package
from The Apple Developer Connection site
for all of the the system-java-dev packages to show up on 10.5 and 10.6.
It is planned to add this version of fink to the stable tree shortly.
Update, 2010-11-01: fink-0.29.15 has
been added to the stable tree.
The recent 10.5 and 10.6 Java updates (APPLE-SA-2010-10-20-1 Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3
and APPLE-SA-2010-10-20-2 Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 8 )
change the Java file configuration in such a manner that fink
no longer generates the system-java16-dev package on 10.5 and
all of the system-java-dev packages on 10.6.
Users may wish to hold off on applying this update until
a version of fink which addresses this issue is released.
The issue does not affect packages which are currently installed, but will
prevent java-dependent packages from building.
Users will want to download an appropriate version of the Java Developer Package from The Apple Developer Connection site.
Update, 2010-10-23: The issue has been addressed in fink-0.29.15.
fink-0.29.14 has been released to the unstable tree.
This version of finkcontains, among
other new features, an aria2 option for DownloadMethod,
to allow the use of the aria2 download accelerator
(available via Fink), and a fix for the infamous "node exists" error.
It is planned to add this version to the stable tree shortly.
Addendum, 2010-10-19: because of the Java update (2010-10-20),
fink-0.29.15 is now slated to be the version next to go to stable.
Our user services have been restored. On Oct 28th the Web site and some of the mirrors (rsync, source files, binary distribution) were restored, and on Oct 30th all of our main rsync mirrors were operational. Once again, we apologise for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience and support.
2009-10-24: Server issues. We have had server issues and as a result the Web site and the official binary distribution are down, and the rsync servers are stalled. Whilst we sort this out, you may:
- (Web site) Use http://fink.thetis.ig42.org if you need Web site information
- (selfupdate) If you use rsync as your selfupdate method then edit
/sw/etc/fink.confand replace the line that starts withMirror-rsyncwithMirror-rsync: rsync://fink.gecko.ig42.org/finkinfo/ - (source files) Edit
/sw/etc/fink.confand replace the line that starts withMirror-masterwithMirror-master: http://fink-dist.gecko.ig42.org - (bindist) Edit
/sw/etc/fink.confand replace the line that starts withMirror-apt:withMirror-apt: http://fink-bindist.gecko.ig42.org - (bindist) Edit
/sw/etc/apt/sources.listand replacehttp://bindist.finkmirrors.net/bindistwithhttp://fink-bindist.gecko.ig42.org - (bindist) Run
fink scanpackages.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
2009-08-28: Fink on 10.6. Fink is ready to be used on Snow Leopard (OS X v. 10.6). Users will need to choose between a 32-bit version of fink and a 64-bit version of fink for 10.6. The 32-bit version has more packages available at the present time, but the 64-bit version represents the future direction for OS X and for fink; individual users must make this decision on their own. It will not be possible to "upgrade" from 32-bit to 64-bit (or vice versa), without completely reinstalling fink.
At the moment, two methods are available for installing Fink on Snow Leopard. A binary installer is not available, so it is important to first install XCode from the Optional Installs folder on the Snow Leopard disk. Users wanting the 64-bit version, or users upgrading directly from 10.4 or earlier, must bootstrap fink from the distribution tarball (version 0.29.9 or later), available at sourceforge.net; installation instructions are here. On the other hand, users can upgrade directly from 10.5 to the 32-bit version, following the instructions below. (One warning: users who have installed a development version of fink from CVS rather than a released version may encounter trouble; please downgrade your fink to a released version, and remove stray .deb files of higher versions, before beginning.)
To upgrade, follow a four step process.
Step 1: edit the file /sw/etc/fink.conf,
adding a line to it which reads NoAutoIndex: true (You may
need to use sudo to obtain the correct permissions to edit
this file.) Step 2:
run the command fink reinstall fink in
order to tell fink that you are now on 10.6. (If you encounter a message
about package database corruption, run fink index -f and
try this step again.) Step 3:
run the command fink update
fink to get the latest fink for 10.6. Step 4: run the command
fink install perl588-core to replace the version of perl
which Apple changed during the OS X upgrade, in case you have
fink packages which depend on it.
After the upgrade, you may wish to run fink configure
to do some cleanup.
Almost all of the packages in fink's stable tree will compile on 10.6, but be warned that only a fraction of the 10.5 packages are currently available for 10.6. In the near future, fink's package database will be updated to include information about packages for 10.6; you can check there to see if your favorite package is ready.
2009-07-25: Fink Core Group changes. The Fink Core Group announces two new members: Alexander Hansen (akh) and Augusto Devegili (monipol), both of whom have been very active in fink. Please join us in welcoming the new members!
The Group also announces that Christian Schaffner has stepped down, returning to "ordinary member" status. We thank Christian for his help on the team over the past several years.
Members of the Fink project are working hard to provide user support, to keep Fink up to date, and to prepare for the upcoming Snow Leopard release. More volunteers are always needed, so please consider getting involved at some level!
2008-07-23: End of 10.3 support. The Fink project is no longer able to offer support for users of Fink on Mac OS X 10.3. In reality there has been very little support for some time, so this announcement simply formalizes that fact.
This means that there will not be any further updates, not even security updates, for Mac OS X 10.3 users. Their existing installations will continue to work, but the software that is installed will not be updated.
We believe that the majority of our users are using Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 and hope that this does not inconvenience too many people.
2008-07-17: Mass package migration. The massive GNOME update which has been in process for many months was merged into fink's unstable tree. This is well tested, and updates by users appear to be going fairly smoothly.
We are now merging the gnome update into the stable tree. Because we have been unable to test the dependencies of these new packages in the stable tree in advance, users can expect the "stable" tree to be "not so stable" during the next few weeks, while the bugs get worked out.
If you are eager to start using this massive gnome update immediately, we suggest that you switch to the unstable tree. If not, we suggest that you hold off running "fink selfupdate" for a while (perhaps a week or two) until things have again stabilized.
2008-06-26: New Fink release. A new (binary) Fink release for OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is available today: version 0.9.0, which can be installed on either Intel or PowerPC hardware. The release includes source files, binary packages, and Fink installers for both kinds of hardware.
Users who have already installed Fink on Leopard from source, who now wish
to switch to the binary distribution, may do so as follows. First,
run fink selfupdate to update to the latest version of the
fink package manager. Next, run fink configure, and be sure
to change your choice about using the binary distribution from No
to yes. Finally, run fink scanpackages to activate the binary
distribution.
Update, 2008-07-11: If you use the binary installer, you
should run fink selfupdate after installation.
Every large open source project has to face the problem of distribution and Fink is no different. We want you to get all the files you need to build your favourite application as quickly as possible. A mirror close to your location is a first step to achieving that.
We are actively working on building a reliable distribution infrastructure consisting of mirrors sponsored by universities and corporations. Recently our list of mirrors had to be shortened considerably and we need your help to improve its level of quality again.
Are you a student? Are you a professor? Do you run a Data Center? Are you a developer with free time to spare? Even if you cannot say yes to any of those questions you still might be able to help. All the relevant information on how to run and sponsor a mirror can be found on the FinkWiki. For specific questions you can contact us directly. We are looking for mirrors all over the world, but specifically in these countries:
- United States
- Japan
- Germany
- France
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- Italy
- Spain
- Switzerland
- Australia
We would like to take this opportunity to thank those who are already providing Fink with mirrors. Without your continued support Fink would not be able to provide the level of service it currently does. Thank you!
2008-01-12: Fink website downThe fink website is not functioning correctly at present. (You may have noticed that many of the links on this page do not function correctly.) The fink team is working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
Update, 2008-01-13: The website is back to normal.
2007-12-10: Leopard, X11, and FinkUsers who want to update their Leopard X11 installation should make sure to download a Fink-friendly update to Xquartz. Users who have already applied the X11-2.1.0.1.pkg from macosxforge.org must download the Fink-compatible Xquartz for Fink to work properly. (Note: there is an X11-2.1.1.pkg release pending which will remove the need to patch your Xquartz. If you install X11 2.1.1 or later, do not apply the Xquartz patch.)
Update, 2007-12-11: The X11 2.1.1 release is now available on the Xquartz release page. Users who have already applied the X11-2.1.0.1.pkg and/or the patched Xquartz-1.3.0-apple-fink file from macosxforge.org should upgrade to 2.1.1 or greater for Fink to work properly. This release supercedes all previous releases, including the fink-specific Xquartz.
2007-11-18: PDB Website Down The Package Database web interface is presently down pending hardware and software upgrades. We are working on fixing the server as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Update, 2007-12-10: The Package Database is up and running again, with a few new features, including RSS support in the package browser.
2007-10-26: Initial Leopard Support The Fink Project announces initial support for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5).
10.5 users who are starting a new Fink tree will need to do this via bootstrap, until a binary distribution gets generated. Download fink-0.27.8 here.
The 10.4->10.5 update can be accomplished by running fink selfupdate to get fink-0.27.8 . If you're doing this on 10.5, make sure that you have Xcode 3.0 installed. After 10.5 is installed, run fink reinstall fink.
A direct 10.3->10.5 upgrade path isn't ready yet. If you're impatient to get going, you'll need to download the fink-0.27.8 tarball and bootstrap a new Fink tree as above.
Update, 2007-10-29: Users who have updated from 10.4 to 10.5 should note that using fink cleanup to remove .deb files will remove all of them. This issue should be resolved in the next update.
Update, 2007-11-03: fink-0.27.8 or later should solve the above issue as well as a couple of others that have come up.
Some users of fink's unstable tree are having sporadic difficulties at the end of building large packages, getting reports like tar: File changed as we read it which causes the .deb file not to be built.
The fink team is currently studying this problem to determine a permanent
fix. For the time being, users experiencing this problem can work around
it by issuing the command fink install tar-1.15.1-14. It
may be necessary to issue that command after each fink update-all
command, as well.
Once the fink team has determined how to solve this problem permanently, another announcement will be made here.
Update, 16 March 2007: The new version of fink's
dpkg package resolves this problem. Unstable users can
now run the update commands normally.
Update, 21 August 2006: The server has been restored.
The server which hosts four important fink services (the rsync update, the binary distribution, the "master mirror" of source files, and the package database) is down at the moment. We are hoping that the server will be restored as early as Monday, August 21, but are providing these workarounds for use during the period of outage.
To update fink, you must either select an rsync mirror other than the
primary one (see the next paragraph), or use the command
fink selfupdate-cvs. You only need to give this command
once; subsequent updates will continue to be performed using CVS.
When the server is restored, you can revert to rsync updating by means
of the command fink selfupdate-rsync.
To work around the lack of the binary distribution, and the "master mirror"
of source files, run the command fink configure. You should
accept the default answers to all of the questions, except the following:
when asked "Should Fink try to download pre-compiled packages from
the binary distribution if available?" answer "no" (to disable the binary
distribution); when asked if you want to change the mirror settings,
answer "yes", and then you will be asked "What mirror order should fink use
when downloading sources?". The answer is "2: Search Master Mirrors last"
(to disable the automatic attempts to use the master mirror server).
Finally, if you have decided to stick with rsync for updates, when asked to
"Choose a mirror for 'RSync SelfUpdate'" you should choose one other than
rsync://master.us.finkmirrors.net/finkinfo/. Unfortunately, other choices
might not be available to you if you are in the U.S.
Finally, to use the package database during the outage, you can connect to this backup copy of the package database which is a few weeks out of date.
2006-07-24: Reminder: "10.4-transitional" Tree Unsupported on August 1st, 2006
The "10.4-transitional" tree was created as an interim solution to the issues of incompatibilities between binaries made using GCC 3.3 (the default Mac OS X 10.3 compiler) and GCC 4.0 (the default Mac OS X 10.4 compiler). Now that the work to move Fink to using GCC 4.0 is essentially finished, we will be stopping official support of the "10.4-transitional" tree in favor of the "10.4" tree as of August 1st, 2006.
You should not need to do anything if "fink --version" prints "0.8.1.cvs" or "0.8.1.rsync".
As we mentioned previously, there are 2 ways to make the switch to the supported "10.4" tree.
The simplest way is to remove your Fink installation by deleting it and installing fresh using the 0.8.1 installer available from the download page.
Alternately, to preserve your Fink installation, download the upgrade script and read the README for instructions on how to upgrade your existing installation in-place. This will re-build your Fink installation from source, upgrading everything in the process. Be warned, it can take a lot of time, depending on your fink installation!
Feedback on the upgrade script has been very positive; many users have already made the switch. If you have problems, please feel free to mail your issues to the discussion lists.
Update, 2 June 2007. Due to changes to the behavior of sudo on 10.4.9, the update script needs a bit of assistance. Switching to a superuser prompt first via sudo -s will suffice.
Are you at OSCON 2006? Want to meet up?
Benjamin Reed (RangerRick on #fink) is at OSCON and is interested in meeting anyone who wants to hang out and talk about Fink, or even just meet for the heck of it.
Meet us in room F150 on Wednesday, July 26th at 8:30pm and we'll talk about Fink, Mac OS X, and anything else that takes our fancy.
2006-07-01: July is "Fink Update Month" Fink users on PowerPC machines are advised to update their copies of fink from the old "10.4-transitional" tree to the more recent "10.4" tree. We plan to discontinue the 10.4-transitional tree by the end of July, 2006.
Some background: along with OS X 10.4 came a new version of the g++ compiler (one of the workhorses of Fink), which produced code that was binary incompatible with previous versions. Fink, when using the 10.4-transitional tree, mixes the new gcc-4.0 compiler with the older g++-3.3 compiler. This strategy gave us some extra time to make packages compatible with g++-4.0. The time has now come to complete that transition, and rely exclusively on the newer tree. The update, however, is slightly complicated since all packages using or providing g++ libraries must be rebuilt in the correct order.
If you are using OS X 10.4, you can
find out if you need to update your Fink installation
by running the command
fink --version. If the Distribution version is 0.8.1.cvs
or 0.8.1.rsync, you do not need to update. However, if the
Distribution version is 0.8.0.cvs or 0.8.0.rsync, you should update,
as described below.
Many users will prefer to remove their fink installations and start anew with the 0.8.1 installer. Others will prefer to use the 10.4-update tarball (v. 0.4) (around 12 MB), which includes precompiled versions of the basic fink packages as well as a script which will attempt to update an existing fink installation. Please consult the README file which you will find within the 10.4-update directory (after unpacking the tarball) for further instructions.
Note: Fink users who are upgrading their systems from OS X 10.3 to OS X 10.4 can use the same two options to update their fink installations: they can either remove their old fink installations and start over, or they can use the same 10.4-update tarball. The update script should not be run until after OS X has been upgraded.
2006-06-15: New Fink release. A new Fink release for OS X 10.4 (Tiger) is available today: version 0.8.1, which can be installed on either Intel or PowerPC hardware. The release includes source files, binary packages, and Fink installers for both kinds of hardware.
Fink on the Intel platform is still considered "beta" quality, and a number of packages (particularly packages in the "unstable" tree) either do not compile, or compile but do not run. Work to improve this situation is ongoing.
Fink users on PowerPC whose existing fink installation uses the 10.4-transitional tree (from the 0.8.0 distribution) may upgrade in one of two ways. The upgrade process is problematic, due to the change in ABI of g++ libraries which requires many libraries to be recompiled. Many users will simply wish to remove their fink installations and start anew with the 0.8.1 installer. Others may wish to use the new 10.4-update tarball (v. 0.3) (around 12 MB), which includes precompiled versions of the basic fink packages as well as a script which will attempt to update an existing fink installation.
2006-05-10: CVS Troubles As many Fink users are aware, the Fink CVS repository at sourceforge.net has not been fully functional since March 30. The anonymous CVS access has not been updated since then, and as of several days ago, the developers are also unable to update CVS in any form.
As we understand the current plans of sourceforge's staff (outlined briefly on their site status page), the old CVS servers will never be brought back in their current form. This is likely to mean disruption for fink users, but at present, we cannot say what form this disruption will take.
Our current advice to fink users is to switch to the 'rsync' method of updating (by running the command 'fink selfupdate-rsync'). This will at least give you a fink installation which is current up through May 7. If a full update to the new CVS situation turns out to be impossible via fink's normal selfupdate command, we will post instructions here on how to update when they become available.
Update 5/24/06: CVS is now functioning again, and users using the rsync
method of selfupdating are getting up-to-date content. If you are using
the cvs method, and can't (or don't wish to) switch to rsync, you should
download the file fink-mirrors-0.24.15.2.tar.gz from the
Sourceforge file release page, expand the file, and run the command
./inject.pl from within the fink-mirrors-0.24.15.2 directory. After this has been done, the fink selfupdate command
should again work normally.
The Fink team has received reports of problems with the rsync
program which was modified by Apple's new Security Update 2006-001: for some
users, fink selfupdate fails to function after the Security
Update. (The underlying cause appears to be a problem with the
--delete option for rsync.)
As a workaround, users can run fink install rsync to use
fink's rsync package rather than the Apple program. Or, for those users
who need specific features of the Apple program (such as support for
Extended Attributes), another workaround is fink selfupdate-cvs
to switch from rsync to cvs updating.
Update 3/13/06: This has been resolved by security update 2006-002, according to Apple's documentation.
2006-02-21: Preliminary version of Fink on Intel A preliminary version of Fink for the Intel architecture is now ready. No binary packages are available, and things are still rough around the edges, but it should be usable if you are patient!
To install it, you need to install the XCode compiler and SDK packages (at minimum). Then you need to get the file
fink-0.24.16.tar.gz (or a later version, if it's available)
from the
Sourceforge file release page for Fink, expand the file, and
run the command ./bootstrap.sh . At the end of the
bootstrap process, run fink selfupdate and you'll get
the currently available packages.
At last check, there were about 1750 packages in the "stable" tree, but about 150 of those did not build. When things are truly stable, another annoucement will be made here.
2006-01-10: Fink ready for XCode 2.2 (but not for Intel). Fink is now ready for XCode 2.2, with the exception of the openoffice.org packages (which are expected to function again when we switch to the 10.4 tree). Users are encouraged to upgrade to XCode 2.2 whenever they wish; XCode 2.2 will be required for running the 10.4 tree when it is released.
On the other hand, in spite of today's announcements from Apple, Fink is not ready to run on Intel processors. The Fink team hopes to have an Intel-ready version of fink released within a few weeks; the Fink team does not advise early recipients of new iMacs to install Fink on them, but suggests waiting until the new version of fink is ready.
Fink package maintainers please take note of the new Architecture field, now documented in the packaging manual.
The Fink team has had reports of some build problems with the XCode 2.2 compilers. Until these are sorted out, we recommend that users hold off on upgrading XCode.
For those who have already installed XCode 2.2 and don't want to revert to 2.1, your participation in the effort to find packages that don't work and to fix them so that they do is welcomed!
2005-06-09: New Fink releases. Three new Fink releases are available today: version 0.8.0 (for 10.4), version 0.7.2 (for 10.3), and version 0.6.4 (for 10.2). All three releases include source files, binary packages, and a Fink installer for new users.
The new release for 10.4 includes all currently-available "stable" packages in source and binary form: there are 1565 of these, which constitutes more than 80% of the 1909 packages available in the 10.3 release. Work continues by the fink developers on bringing more of the stable packages to Tiger.
The new release for 10.2 will be the last official release for that version of Mac OS X. Although no further updates (not even security updates) will be provided by the Fink team, we anticipate that the 0.6.4 release will be usable for years to come.
Users upgrading to 10.4 can now simply issue a
fink selfupdate command, followed by
sudo /sw/lib/fink/postinstall.pl (for first-time updaters
on 10.4), fink scanpackages and sudo apt-get update.
We don't recommend bootstrapping at the moment, since bootstrapping does
not work with the newly-released XCode 2.1 from Apple.
Note added 6/19/05: If the Fink-0.8.0 binary installer complains that the volume does not support symlinks, try launching Disk Utility (from the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder), selecting the problematic volume and clicking on "repair disk permissions." Also, the installer requires you to have administrative privileges, so be sure that you're running it as such a user.
Note added 6/30/05: To avoid contamination with obsolete headers and the like, we recommend that people who want to build packages from source should perform a clean install of XCode via running the /Developer/Tools/uninstall-devtools.pl script. For best results, you may want to do this before updating your OS.
Fink can be used on OS X 10.4! There are several ways you can update:
- A binary installer will be available within a few weeks, for binary-only users. In the meantime, new users should bootstrap fink 0.23.10, just as stable users, below.
-
For users of the stable tree, we recommend that you delete your current
fink with
sudo rm -Rf /swand then "bootstrap" an installation of fink-0.23.10 using fink-0.23.10.tar.gz--download that file and expand it, eg. viatar -xvzf fink-0.23.10.tar.gz. After running the command./bootstrap.shin the resultingfink-0.23.10directory, you'll need to runfink selfupdate -
For users of the unstable tree, you may be able to upgrade just by running
fink selfupdateif your version of fink is less than 0.24.6. It will install fink-0.24.6 for you. After upgrading to 10.4, first check that you have the right version of fink by issuingfink --version. If your version is less than 0.24.6, runfink selfupdateto get the right version of fink. Then, whether you selfupdated or not, reinstall the fink package usingfink rebuild fink, and follow that with anotherfink selfupdate.
Not all packages are working yet under 10.4, but that situation will improve over the next several weeks. The stable tree contains substantially fewer packages than in 10.3, but all of them should compile.
Of course, some wrinkles still need to be ironed out. We encourage users with mission-critical applications to check in on the mailing lists to verify whether anyone has had experience with the package in question before upgrading.
2004-11-20: Solution to gcc problems. Apple has released the November 2004 gcc3 updater, available (upon free registration) at connect.apple.com. This updater fixes the problems with the gcc3 compiler in XCode 1.5. If you are using XCode 1.5, you should install this updater. (The updater will update correctly for users with an untouched XCode 1.5, and also for users who installed the workaround which the fink project had previously recommended.)
We would like to thank Apple for responding to our reports about this matter, and working to resolve it as quickly as possible.
2004-10-15: Workaround for gcc problems. The version of gcc included with XCode 1.5 is known to produce incorrect output from c++ code under certain circumstances. Fink now has a mechanism to warn users about this, and Fink will soon refuse to use the "broken" gcc to compile packages which are known to have this problem.
If you have already upgraded XCode to version 1.5, there is a workaround, described here and here .
If you have not yet upgraded, you should consider remaining with XCode version 1.2 until the problem has been resolved.
2004-09-20: Fink 0.7.1 released. The latest Fink release, version 0.7.1 (for 10.3), is now available for both source and binary users. This release is meant for Panther (10.3) based Mac OS X versions. The 0.6.3 release remains available for Jaguar (10.2) based Mac OS X versions.
This new release incorporates various fixes to the package manager, and many previously unavailable binary packages have been added resulting in a total of 1650 binary packages. This includes binaries for KDE 3.1.4 and GNOME 2.4.
To complete a new Fink installation you should follow the instructions posted here. You may upgrade your existing Fink to the latest Fink using your current installation. A full list of the differences between 0.7.0 and 0.7.1 can be viewed by visiting this page.
If you have questions or problems, please try the Fink mailing lists. You can learn more about them here.
Please make sure you pick the appropriate installer for your platform. Fink 0.6.3 will only install on Mac OS X 10.2.*, while Fink 0.7.1 will only install on Mac OS X 10.3.*
The Fink Team would like to thank its many contributors, frequent helpers and developers for making this release happen. We also thank our community for downloading the prior release 0.7.0 more than 130,000 times. Without their constant support and valuable pointers, Fink would not be where we are now.
2004-08-23: Problems with XCode 1.5 In the past few days, there have been reports that some fink packages do not compile correctly using XCode 1.5. If you have not already upgraded to XCode 1.5, we suggest that you wait until this issue is resolved before doing so.
If you are having problems with a package which compiled under XCode 1.2 but does not compile correctly under XCode 1.5, please report the package to the fink-devel mailing list. (The usual symptom is: some symbols are missing after compiling with g++.) Packages already known to have this problem include octave, singular-factory, singular-libfac, and possibly sdl.
2004-08-21: Error in fink-0.22.0
The fink-0.22.0 package manager, which was available briefly in the
unstable tree this past week, had a bug which prevents further
updating via rsync. If you installed this version of fink, you
can recover by running the command
fink install fink-0.21.2-1 which will downgrade fink
to the version in the stable tree, and subsequently running
fink selfupdate
If for any reason those commands don't work, go to
the
fink file release page at sourceforge and download the
file fink-0.22.1.tar.gz (or a more recent, i.e.,
higher numbered, version). Unpack this file with
tar xfz fink-0.22.1.tar.gz , and then from within the
fink-0.22.1 directory, run the command ./inject.pl
The fink team apologizes for the error, and thanks the user community for bringing it to our attention quickly.
2004-08-01: Improving our mirrors. Can you help? Fink's decision to gradually build its own network of mirrors has paid off. To make sure that we can continue to offer a high quality service we need to improve our mirror network. It has been some time since we last asked for more mirrors. It is time to do so again. Fink is very grateful for the resources granted to us by our community. To further improve our service to the community we require an even better mirror system. We especially lack mirrors in central Europe, Russia and the Far East. If you feel that you have at least two Mbit to spare for a rsync mirror, or more to offer a distfiles mirror, please contact us.
To get a better understanding of the different types of mirrors Fink offers, please review finkmirrors.net. This is the official homepage for all mirror related issues. If you feel that you can offer other types of resources, web-space for testing as an example, please do not hesitate in contacting us as well.
2004-04-06: Fink 0.6.3 and 0.7.0 released. The latest Fink releases, version 0.6.3 (for 10.2) and 0.7.0 (for 10.3), are now available for both source and binary users. The 0.6.3 release has been built on 10.2, while release 0.7.0 has been built on 10.3. This should facilitate better support for the different platforms.
These new releases incorporate various fixes to the package manager, many previously unavailable binary packages have been added and problematic packages for 10.3 users have been rebuilt.
To complete a new Fink installation you should follow the instructions posted here. You may upgrade your existing Fink installation to the latest Fink release by following the instructions posted here. If you have questions or problems, please try the Fink mailing lists you can learn more about them here.
Please make sure you pick the appropriate installer for your Platform. Fink 0.6.3 will only install on Mac OS X 10.2.* while Fink 0.7.0 will only install on Mac OS X 10.3.*
The Fink Team would like to thank its many contributors, frequent helpers and developers for making this release happen. We also thank our community, without their constant support and valuable pointers Fink would not be where we are now..
2004-02-19: Raise your Flag. Thanks to Baba Yoshihiko, Fink has now taken the necessary steps to allow for internationalisation efforts. The improved infrastructure enables us to display a multilingual web-site to our visitors from all over the world.
This also means that we need volunteers. The Fink web-site needs to be translated into the language of your choice. A translation into Japanese is being worked on and the translation into French has been taken over by Michele Garoche. Which language are you willing to translate?
If you are willing to become a member of the internationalisation team or wish to provide feedback on the web-site feel free to join the new mailing-list. You can do so by going to our mailing-lists page. The full announcement on the existing mailing lists can be read here.
2004-02-02: Java 1.4.2 Update Removes Java SDK If you previously had Java 1.4.1 and the Java SDK installed, the new Java 1.4.2 update from apple will upgrade the Java runtime to 1.4.2, but will remove the previous 1.4.1 Java runtime and SDK without upgrading the JDK. To build Java packages in Fink you will need to go to connect.apple.com and download the Java 1.4.2 SDK (free registration required).
2004-01-18: 10.3 binaries updated
Many of the binary files for 10.3 have been updated, eliminating problems
with qt and kde, among others. To access the updated files, bring your
index of binary files up-to-date by running the
command sudo apt-get update . After this, you can use
apt-get, dselect or FinkCommander to install binary files as usual.
Thanks to the new Fink GNOME Core team, including a lot of hard work by packaging newcomer Keith Conger and GNOME 1.x maintainer Masanori Sekino, GNOME 2.4 has finally been released to the 10.3 unstable tree.
It is there for the taking; please offer some of your time and test these packages if you are on unstable already. Because of the massive number of changes, it is expected that there will be issues upgrading or installing the new GNOME. If you have problems, you can reach the GNOME-savvy people at fink-gnome-core@lists.sourceforge.net. Please do report success stories there as well. The more good reports we get, the faster GNOME 2.4 can be moved to stable.
For those of you who do not read our mailing lists, why aren't you subscribed yet? Here is a link to detailed instructions how to install or upgrade GNOME and what new stuff it brings.
2004-01-02: Whaaazaaap Dawgs, Two Zero Zero Four is on! A happy new year to all of you from the whole team. Blame this outburst of an attempt at slang language on some of us having to watch the MTV Music Awards all day long.
Last year has been a good year for Fink. We have had hard times keeping up with the changes introduces by Apple, but we also learned that we have a great community which is willing to go through great lengths to support us. For this, we say "Thank You". Much of what happens in the Fink project happens because of the amazing support and encouragement we get from our users.
Two Zero Zero Four should not make us slow down, but speed up. There are some interesting things in the pipeline, including GNOME 2.4, a new release of KDE, major changes to the package manager itself, and organisational restructuring. Hopefully we will advance into an even bigger project with developer conferences, real life meetings, and a CD in your favourite shop.
High ambitions can make one fall very deeply, thus we shall take it carefully, but still we are all counting on your support during this year. Tell us what you think about Fink; tell us what you like or dislike; show us ways to improve ourselves. Lend us your resources and sponsor a mirror or hardware. Devote some of your time to improve the package manager or add another piece of software by creating an info file. Browse this website and hopefully indulge yourself. We enjoy serving such a nice community; hopefully we shall make it a smooth ride for you and your Macintosh in Two Zero Zero Four.
2003-12-28: Merry Christmas and a happy new year The Fink team and I wish all of you a merry Christmas and happy Holidays. We are looking forward to yet another year where we can help the Macintosh community grow into the world of UNIX together with Mac OS X.
We wish you all, that your hope is not too frail and that you will carry on following through with your wishes. May the world we live in gradually become a better place and may peace and understanding settle just for a few days.
Enjoy your quiet time and in case we do not get around to saying it soon enough. A happy new year to all of you, stay with us we count on your support.
2003-11-30: There they are! New mirrors.. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What a great community we have. Thank you for providing us with more mirrors.
Matthew Healey, member of the Western Australian Macintosh User Group, and their ISP extremedsl are providing Fink with a full mirror in Perth, Australia. This is our first mirror in down under, thus I am pleased to welcome them to the family. Furthermore the UKMIRROR service has accepted us, making distfile services available for Fink on 21 load balanced server.
We are very happy about this development, but we still need more rsync mirrors. Thus, once more, if you feel like helping, please visit finkmirrors.net and get in touch.
2003-11-24: More mirrors....pretty please? While we welcome our latest full mirror in Norway, sponsored by Havar Valeur, we crave more. To improve our service to all of you, we would like to ask that you evaluate carefully if you maybe do have the resources to become a mirror.
All it takes is a 10Mbit link, around 100MB of disk space and some bandwidth you are willing to share for Fink. The exact setup instructions for rsync mirrors can be found here. Especially mirrors in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South Europe and Middle Europe are welcome, since we have none in those regions yet. If you feel generous and wish to donate even more resources, please visit finkmirrors.net to learn about your options.
The current status of all available rsync mirrors can be viewed on the finkmirrors.net pages as well. We hope to improve this service in the future, yet this depends on your willingness to help us out. We are looking forward to many new applications and thank our community in advance.
2003-11-17: Fink 0.6.2 released The latest Fink release, version 0.6.2, is now available
for both source and binary users. This is a bug-fix release, intended
to address two problems: the dselect/user deletion bug, and a
problem with ownership of files. The dselect bug was addressed by
updating the fink, dpkg, and apt packages. After updating to 0.6.2,
it is safe to once again use dselect. However, if you ran dselect
at any time since 0.6.0, you should carefully check the integrity
of the file at /sw/etc/apt/sources.list. If you have
any doubts about this file, you should replace it with
the default sources.list file.
Users who have installed binary files from the 0.6.1 distribution may find that certain files in their Fink installation are owned by UID 2011 rather than by root. To correct this problem, run the command:
sudo find /sw/ -user 2011 -exec chown root:admin {} \;
This release, like the previous one, was built on OS X 10.2 using the gcc 3.3 compiler, and runs fine with some exceptions* on OS X 10.3. Most Fink users who upgrade to 10.3 will continue to want to only use the binaries from this new distribution for now, while the Fink team continues to modify Fink packages for 10.3.
*Exceptions include: emacs, qt.
2003-11-04: User Deletion Bug/ Dselect Troubles Quick Summary: DO NOT USE DSELECT, and if you've used it, check your /sw/etc/apt/sources.list file carefully.
Users who have bootstrapped or installed Fink 0.5.3 or Fink 0.6.0 on Mac OS X 10.3 could exhibit a problem where all users get deleted from the netinfo database, and you become unable to log in. We believe that this problem can only occur if you've used dselect.
If you are using Mac OS X 10.3, please be sure you're using the
latest Fink version to avoid the issue. To make sure you don't have
upgrade problems, check your /sw/etc/apt/sources.list
file. You will need to modify it if it contains deb
lines that point to "release" or "current" without a version number.
In other words, if your sources.list file contains
these lines:
deb http://us.dl.sourceforge.net/fink/direct_download release main deb http://us.dl.sourceforge.net/fink/direct_download current main
...you should change them to this:
deb http://us.dl.sourceforge.net/fink/direct_download 10.3/release main deb http://us.dl.sourceforge.net/fink/direct_download 10.3/current main
We are working on updating the repository to make sure that even
if you update you don't get the broken code, and to
repair dselect, but in the meantime,
make sure your sources.list file has the correct entries.
Other users have experienced problems with dselect itself, particularly
complaints about a missing "darwin" package. If you are running dselect
under 10.3 and you don't get this warning, then your
sources.list file is likely to be corrupted and you should
repair it as above.
The latest Fink release, version 0.6.1, is now available for both source and binary users. This release was built on OS X 10.2 using the gcc 3.3 compiler, and runs well on OS X 10.3. Most Fink users who upgrade to 10.3 will want to only use the binaries from this new distribution for now, while the Fink team continues to modify Fink packages for 10.3.
If you wish to access the
new binaries, use apt-get, dselect, or the binary mode of
FinkCommander. Unless you are interested in helping the Fink team
to test packages which are compiled on 10.3,
do not use the command-line fink program to do your
installations for the
next few weeks.
The simplest way to upgrade a binary installation is to run "sudo apt-get update". Further details and other issues related to upgrading Fink to 10.3 are addressed on the Special 10.3 upgrade page.
Before using the latest version of
the command-line fink program
under OS X 10.2, be sure to install the August2003gccUpdater, available
after free registration from connect.apple.com.
We wish all of you a happy Halloween.
Furthermore I would like to welcome our new mirrors to the Fink family. From Europe in Rijeka, Croatia a new full mirror joins us. This mirrors has been sponsored by the Jabucnjak Apple user group. This is our first mirror in Europe, so I hope that more will be joining us soon.
Dave Schroeder from the University of Wisconsin in Madison is sponsoring a 100Mbit dedicated Master server. A. J. Wright and SunSITE@UTK are helping out with another full mirror in the United states.
This raises our full mirror count to four and the rsync mirror count to five. We are happy to have such a great community back us up, but I know that more mirrors will join over time. I will not stop nagging you until Fink has its own mirror in every state of the USA. Yet, with such a brilliant community backing us up, I am not too worried about not reaching my goal very soon.
Trick or treat! Our most wanted treat is more mirrors, so come forth Administrators and fill our bag. Information on how you can be a mirror can be found on the official mirroring website.
2003-10-25: Look Ma, a logo for Fink As you surely noticed, Fink has a logo. This is the result of our Logo contest held earlier this year. This new, official, logo has been displayed since the 24th of October and those of you who wondered how it has been picked and what the name of the winner is should read up in the PR section.
The longer explanation also features a larger version of the logo itself, so that you may have a closer look at its details. We like our new logo, we hope that you will like it too.
IMPORTANT: We do not yet have a formal licensing agreement for the new logo and so are unable to give permission to distribute it. Currently, it can only be displayed on the Fink web page. Thank you for your understanding.
2003-10-24: Upgrade to gcc 3.3 and/or 10.3 It is now possible to upgrade Fink to take full advantage of the gcc 3.3 compiler, or to use OS X 10.3 if you have that installed. Binary packages corresponding to these upgrades are not yet available, so if you make extensive use of binary packages you may wish to wait a few days before upgrading.
If you wish to perform this upgrade, and you had previously installed the June 2003 Developer Tools update from Apple, you will need to install the August 2003 Developer Tools update BEFORE you upgrade Fink. Under 10.3, be sure to install XCode from the XCode disk before upgrading Fink.
Running "fink selfupdate" should perform the upgrade for you. The latest version of the fink package manager will automatically detect which version of OS X and which version of gcc you have installed, and will adjust itself accordingly.
If you wish to do a fresh install of Fink on a 10.3 system, we recommend bootstrapping from source, starting from fink-full-0.6.0.tar.gz available on fink's sourceforge download page. You'll need XCode for this as well.
Also note that once you have Fink version 0.15.0 or higher, you do not need to install system-xfree86 anymore. Fink is capable of automatically determining your system-xfree86 version if you don't already have any fink x11 packages installed. If you currently have an old system-xfree86 package of any kind installed, please run the following:
sudo dpkg -r --force-all system-xfree86 system-xfree86-42 \ system-xfree86-43; fink selfupdate; fink index
The Fink team is still working on getting Fink packages working under 10.3, but many many packages already work.
2003-10-23: Say Hello to Mirror Numero Uno You are too late. Rus Foster from JVDS beat you all to it. He is the first one to provide us with resources for a Fink rsync mirror. The mirror is located in Atlanta, GA and is updated every two hours, at 35 minutes past.
For those of you who are still waiting, join in. The more mirrors we have the faster you can rsync your info files. As per usual, updated and current information on the mirror structure can be found on Finkmirrors.net
2003-10-22: Mirror, mirror on the wall... ..who will mirror Fink above all? There is a new player on the turf and it belongs to the Fink team. Finkmirrors.net tells you everything you wanted to know about mirroring Fink and its related resources on your Server. As our mirror structure will hopefully grow in the future, this web-site will also hold information about each individual mirror.
To ensure that our service remains as stable as possible and to distribute the load imposed onto our main rsync server, we are looking for rsync mirrors or full mirrors. Those of you who are willing to share resources will find all the necessary information on Finkmirrors.net.
UPDATE: Yes, I screwed up when I initially installed the DNS records. If you cannot connect please try again later. I am very sorry for this inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.
2003-10-12: New update method available The latest version of the fink package manager offers a new update
method, fink selfupdate-rsync, as an alternative to the
CVS updates which have been so problematic in the past few months.
If you have difficulty updating to the new version, please follow
these
special update instructions.
In addition, this version of the fink package manager is compatible with last summer's Developer Tools updates. After installing both the new package manager and the Developer Tools update, fink will ask you to reset your gcc version whenever that is necessary.
2003-09-02: Logo contest ends The Logo contest held by Fink, announced here, ended yesterday. With over 80 different proposals from countries all over the world we consider the contest a big success. In the next couple of days all the submitted entries will be put on-line in a publicly accessible gallery and more details on the participants shall be published. For those who are curious and cannot wait may have a look at an incomplete preview.
Fink is proud to be part of such a supportive community and would like to thank those who submitted entries and MacWelt for their continued support.
2003-08-18: Source files from ftp.gnu.org As announced in this CERT advisory, it has recently been discovered that the ftp servers for GNU software were compromised back in March, although it is not believed that any of the source code housed there was affected.
Fink relies on MD5 checksums when downloading software, and we have had
no reports of incorrect checksums in Fink packages. The Free Software
Foundation is in the process of verifying the integrity of all of the
source code distributed from that ftp site. As of this writing, the source
code for the following Fink packages have not yet been verified:
autoconf2.54,
emacs21,
gprolog,
groff,
guile16,
help2man,
jwhois,
libtool14,
libosip1,
sed,
slib.
It may be difficult to install those packages at present.
Quick Summary: DO NOT INSTALL THIS UPDATE.
Apple has released a patch to the December 2002 Developer Tools which includes gcc 3.3, their new compiler.
Fink does not yet support compiling with gcc 3.3. In addition, it is important not to "mix and match" between compilers: all C++ code in fink packages needs to be compiled with the same compiler.
For this reason, the Fink team recommends that if you update your
Developer Tools with the new patch, you should be careful to run
sudo gcc_select 3
prior to any "fink build" or "fink install" commands.
Update 30 June 2003: A problem has now been detected with the new assembler program which the update installs, which may prevent certain Fink packages from being compiled at all if you install this update.
Generally, Fortran programs will break if you install the update; the breakage does not stop by simply switching back to gcc 3.1. The Fink team is working on a workaround for this problem, but until it is ready, if you need Fortran-related programs you should not install the update.
2003-06-20: Darwin packaging groups to coordinate efforts. The Fink, Gentoo, and DarwinPorts projects are pleased to announce the formation of a cooperative development alliance forged to facilitate delivery of freely available software to Mac OS X. Under this new alliance, the projects will share information and coordinate efforts for porting software to Apple's Mac OS X and Darwin operating systems. Members of the alliance will share information using the www.metapkg.org Web site, which will provide a home for this cooperative effort.
2003-06-16: Fink logo contest begins. Fink and MacWelt have managed to organize a logo contest. For the next six weeks everyone is invited to submit their logo creations. Fink needs a new face and with your help we might just get one. We are curious to see what you imagine Fink to be as a graphical representation. The initial announcement by Macnews is in German, for those of you not capable of reading German a translated version can be found here.
Fink and MacWelt hope that many of you will participate as we might just find some prices for the winners. Good luck and.... start drawing.
2003-05-05: KDE 3.1.1 Binaries Available KDE 3.1.1 binaries are now available. Since they
have been released after 0.5.2 came out, you will need to update
your package descriptions by running sudo apt-get update
(or equivalent) before they will be available for installation.
For pointers to the changes and security fixes in this release,
see the
announcement.
McAfee has released Virex 7.2.1, which no longer
overwrites the main Fink directory /sw. Fink users should
continue to avoid Virex 7.2.
Early reports indicate that upgrading Virex from 7.2 to 7.2.1
still leaves some problems however. If you upgrade Virex with Fink not
installed, and subsequently
wish to install Fink, you will need to delete the /sw
directory by hand before installing. And if you upgrade Virex with
Fink already installed, you should immediately run
fink reinstall openssl-shlibs dlcompat-shlibs curl-ssl-shlibs
to restore files which the Virex upgrade may have deleted.
Fink is proud to announce that the Fink binary distribution 0.5.2 is available from the download page. With over 190 new binary packages, KDE, KOffice and KDevelop binaries amongst other various improvements this is a recommended download for any new and all existing Fink users. The full announcement can be read on the fink-announce mailing list.
(If you are having trouble upgrading a source installation, consult these special instructions.)
2003-04-09: Interview on OSNews.com OSNews.com today is featuring a mini-interview with one of our project leaders, Max Horn. It contains some rather unusual questions, so even if you know Fink fairly well, you might find it informative.
2003-03-29: KDE 3.1.1 Final In Unstable KDE 3.1.1 is now in Fink unstable. The full announcement can be read here. Improvements over 3.1 final include many upstream bugfixes, build improvements, koffice bugfixes, kmail crash fixes, and other miscellaneous updates. Binary packages will not be available in time for the next binary distribution, but will be released as an update shortly thereafter.
2003-03-18: KDE 3.1 Final In Stable KDE 3.1 is now in Fink stable. The full announcement can be read here. Improvements over 3.1 beta1 include an updated audio driver, faster startup times, cleaned up fink package info, support for Apple X11's window manager, and many bugfixes. Binary packages will be available in the next binary distribution release.
2003-03-17: Apple X11 Beta 3 Released A new version of Apple's X11 for Mac OS X is available. It fixes a number of bugs including a few that can cause problems with building Fink packages. It is recommended that all Fink users who are using Apple X11 upgrade. A new version of the system-xfree86 package has been released to unstable that takes the new Apple X11 into account. It should be appearing in stable shortly.
2003-02-14: New version of FinkCommander FinkCommander, a separate project which provides a GUI for Fink, has released version 0.5.0, their first Jaguar-only version. The new version includes a package browser which allows you to view the files that Fink has installed for a particular package, as well as many other improvements.
2003-02-07: DO NOT INSTALL VIREX 7.2 The Virex 7.2 package, currently being distributed free to all .Mac members, has a serious conflict with Fink. Fink users should not install Virex 7.2 under any circumstances. Installing it after Fink is installed will damage your Fink installation; installing it prior to Fink will make it impossible to install Fink without damaging Virex.
This bug has been reported to Virex's manufacturer. We will keep the Fink community informed about the situation as it develops.
2003-01-26: Apple X11 Library Warning While Apple's X11 works just fine with existing binaries, it has a bug in the install name of the libraries that can cause some software to build incorrectly, and will break forward-compatibility with future X11 releases.
Ben Hines has created a script (available here) that you can use that will fix the install_name entries in Apple's X11 libraries, but it will not repair software you have already built against the broken libraries.
Update 11 February 2003: This script is not needed with version 0.2 of Apple's X11.app which was released yesterday.
2003-01-21: Gnome, libpng, and the unstable tree
A problem was uncovered today concerning the versions of imlib,
libpng, and gnome in Fink's unstable tree. The Fink team is hard at
work addressing this problem. As a workaround, users can downgrade
their imlib package to the stable version, "fink install
imlib-1.9.10-9", until the problem is fixed.
Many Fink users may be using Fink's unstable tree without being
fully aware of what this entails. For a few months in the fall,
enabling the unstable tree was the only way to gain access to
10.2-compatible versions of Fink packages.
That is no longer the case.
Fink users who do not wish to help the Fink team with testing should
disable their unstable tree. To do this, edit the file
/sw/etc/fink.conf and remove the items
unstable/main and unstable/crypto from the
Trees line.
The Fink team appreciates those users who are willing to stick with the unstable tree, even when there are problems like today's, and provide the team with prompt feedback. This is a community effort and we appreciate your participation.
2003-01-17: Anonymous CVS issues resolved UPDATE: We are pleased to announce that SourceForge have resolved the issues with anonymous CVS access, and the selfupdate-cvs command should work again. Further details on the downtime can be found on the SourceForge.net site status page.
2003-01-07: Fink Interaction with Apple's X11 Public Beta Fink works just fine with the public beta X11 release with some caveats. Please read the newly added Apple X11 section of the Fink X11 Documentation for details.
2003-01-07: RSS Feeds available Thanks to Benjamin Reed, it is now possible to receive RSS 1.0 Feeds that contain a lot of valuable information. fink-stable.rdf will tell you about the changes and additions in the stable tree, reflecting packages which have been added or modified.
fink-unstable.rdf will tell you about changes or additions to the unstable tree and is most likely the most active RSS feed. The above Feeds are automatically updated every 60 minutes to make sure that they keep you all on top of the latest development.
news.rdf This feed reflects the contents of the Fink News Page. The Feed is updated as soon as a new item is added on the Website.
2002-12-22: New Upgrade Matrix A new Upgrade Matrix is now available, for use in upgrading earlier versions of Fink to the current version, under either OS X 10.1 or OS X 10.2. Users upgrading under 10.1 will be brought to Fink version 0.4.1a, while users upgrading under 10.2 will be brought to Fink version 0.5.0a.
2002-12-11: New Upgrade Matrix coming The Fink team is aware of the shortcomings of the current Upgrade Matrix page, which is inadequate for upgrading to Fink 0.5.0a. Please be patient as we construct a new version of that page, whose existence will be announced here. In the meantime, some of you may wish to use the test version of the Jaguar updater which was made available on 2002-09-08.
2002-12-09: Fink 0.5.0a Released Fink 0.5.0a for Mac OS X 10.2 is now complete. (Note: 0.5.0a is a final release, and replaces 0.5.0 which was never officially released.) This release includes over 700 binary packages for OS X 10.2 as well as over 1800 source packages of all kinds.
The source release and the binary installer are available now, as well as all binary packages. For information about upgrading, visit the Upgrade Matrix.
This release is for Mac OS X 10.2 only. 10.1 users should use Fink 0.4.1.
2002-11-11: Update XFree86 for use with OS X 10.2.2 Users should update their XFree86 installations to version 4.2.1.1 for use with OS X 10.2.2. If you are using system-xfree86, you can get the new version from the XonX project. If you are using Fink's xfree86 packages, you should update to xfree86-base-4.2.1.1-1 and xfree86-rootless-4.2.1.1-1. These packages are recent additions to the 10.2/unstable tree; to gain access to them, you may need to run "fink selfupdate-cvs" and/or enable the unstable tree
2002-10-30: Don't reuse binary installer Users are cautioned to use the binary installer for Fink 0.4.1 only once on a given machine. Due to an apparent bug in Apple's Installer.app program, attempting a second installation on the same machine can result in permissions being altered in the machine's root directory, in some cases leaving the machine in a non-bootable state.
If Installer.app presents you with an "Upgrade" button rather than an "Install" button when installing Fink 0.4.1, do not proceed any further!
A new version of the binary installer for Fink 0.4.1 became available on November 5. The new version avoids the problem of the machine not booting, but even with the new version, users are advised to only "Install", not "Upgrade." (You can recognize the new version by its filesize of 12582912 bytes, while the old version had a filesize of 10541112 bytes.)
2002-09-28: Fink 0.4.1 released The source release and the binary installer are available now, as well as all binary packages. For information about upgrading, visit the Upgrade Matrix.
This is the last release for Mac OS X 10.1. Future versions of Fink will not officially support Mac OS X 10.1 anymore, we are gearing all our efforts towards 10.2.
At the same time, this release is not meant for Mac OS X 10.2. Fink 0.5.0. which is targeted for October, will be geared towards 10.2. In the meantime refer to the news item below on how to upgrade Fink for 10.2.
2002-09-27: Possible conflicts with anti-virus software A number of recent reports on the fink-users mailing list have indicated problems (including kernel panics and infinite hangs during patching) when using Fink to compile packages while anti-virus software is installed. You may need to switch off any anti-virus software before using Fink.
2002-09-08: Test version of Jaguar updater available A test version of the 10.2 updater for Fink is now available. The update process is somewhat complicated at the moment, but is explained in step-by-step instructions for updating. We also have separate instructions to install Fink from scratch on 10.2.
At the moment, approximately 800 out of 1150 Fink packages have been made ready for 10.2. However, virtually all of these packages are still being tested and have not yet been moved to the "stable" tree in the 10.2 section; moreover, binaries for 10.2 packages are not yet available.
2002-08-20: Mac OS X 10.2 / Jaguar During the last few weeks, we got a lot of emails asking whether Fink will work Mac OS X 10.2.
The answer is: Yes, we will support 10.2. However, due to some major changes in this new OS version, we had to make a lot of adjustments both to the Fink tool itself and to many packages. The current binary distribution, 0.4.0a, will only work partially on 10.2. We are working on an upgrade guide, as well as a new Fink release, to support 10.2.
If you upgrade your system to 10.2 before the official Fink update for 10.2 is ready, many Fink packages built on 10.1 are going to work fine, but others need to be rebuilt. Some packages need special changes to build on 10.2. Adding "unstable/main" to your list of trees in /sw/etc/fink.conf (see also the FAQ) will give you access to the latest versions of packages, many of which include important fixes for 10.2.
As of now, please do not email us asking about 10.2 support. If you can't wait, consult the mailing list archives instead.
2002-08-06: Fink package manager 0.10.0 released Yesterday version 0.10.0 of the Fink package manager was released to the unstable tree, along with version 1.6 of the base-files package. All Fink users which are using the unstable tree are recommended to update to this version. The easiest way to do so usually is to run 'fink selfupdate-cvs' which will automatically take care of updating these essential packages.
Please report any problems you encounter with this version via our bug tracker.
An overview of what changed since version 0.9.12 can be found here.
2002-07-17: Binary distribution moves The Fink binary distribution has moved to a new location. All Fink users wishing to use the binary distribution will have to make sure they are using the new binary distribution (many of you already are using it, maybe without even noticing). If you want to know how to switch and why we do this, read more here..
2002-05-29: KDE support Fink announces support for KDE. Packages are available in the unstable distribution, as well as pre-built binaries. For more information on installing and running it, see the full KDE Support In Fink announcement.
2002-05-03: Bug in passwd package All Fink users are urged to update their passwd package to version 20020329 or newer. Older versions of the passwd package are affected by a bug which could lead to the loss of all data on your hard disk if you remove system users created by Fink manually from the system via System Preferences. (Removing them via the NetInfo tool is safe.) You can check the version of your passwd package by entering dpkg -s passwd. If your version is outdated, you can update to the current one in two ways:
- Via the binary distribution. First make sure you have the latest list of packages available: sudo apt-get update. Then you can perform the actual update: sudo apt-get install passwd.
- Via the source distribution. First make sure you have the latest set of package descriptions: fink selfupdate-cvs. Then, update the passwd package: fink update passwd
See Fink's FAQ, question 6.3, for more information about the passwd package.
2002-04-18: Fink 0.4.0 released The source release and the binary installer are available now, as well as many of the binary packages. As usual, the rest of the binaries will be made available during the next few days. For information about upgrading, visit the Upgrade Matrix.
2002-01-16: Fink 0.3.2a is released The source release and the binary installer are available now, the bulk of binary packages will be built and made available gradually over the next few days as usual. For information about upgrading, visit the Upgrade Matrix and the User's Guide.
2002-01-09: Fink 0.3.2 is released The source release is available now, the binary installer will follow soon. The bulk of binary packages will be built and made available gradually over the next few days as usual. For information about upgrading, visit the Upgrade Matrix and the User's Guide.
2002-01-08: Binary distribution lost Due to a faulty script, the whole fink website, including our binary distro, has been wiped! This means you can't use the binary distro right now. I am working as quick as I can on uploading the new Fink 0.3.2 binary distro. In addition, the package database is not working for now. Please bear with us.
2001-12-16: Yes, we are alive! Despite the fact that no news were listed here for over a month, the fink project was quite busy in the recent time. Sadly, our leader, Christoph, left us last month. But despite this, development is going on actively.
Version 0.9.5 of the Fink package manager was recently released, and many updated and new packages are in our CVS.
2001-11-04: Fink 0.3.1 is released The source release and the binary installer are available now, the bulk of binary packages will be built and made available gradually over the next few days as usual. For information about upgrading, visit the Upgrade Matrix and the recently updated User's Guide.
2001-11-02: Running X11 document updated The Running X11 document has had a significant update. The troubleshooting section now has a comprehensive list of XDarwin error messages with explanations.
2001-10-31 MacOSXHints has posted an installation guide for XFree86, Fink, Window Maker and The GIMP.
2001-10-23: forked.net In addition to ripping off Fink packages and breaking the GPL, the ports collection at forked.net has just gone commercial. More details soon.
2001-10-03: Binary distribution complete The binary distribution update is now complete. The 10.1 compatibility report has been updated to reflect the fixes in Fink 0.3.0.
2001-09-30: Fink 0.3.0 is released The source release, the binary installer and a binary upgrade kit for broken-by-10.1 installations are available in the new download section. The bulk of the binary distribution will be updated gradually over the next few days, as usual.
2001-09-26: Mac OS X 10.1 released Mac OS X 10.1 has been officially released yesterday. Before you use Fink on 10.1, check out the compatibility report. Update: The apt-get issue has been solved, expect a new release this weekend.
2001-09-07: Binary distribution fully updated The binary distribution is now fully updated to Fink 0.2.6. Enjoy.
2001-09-04: Fink 0.2.6 is released Fink 0.2.6 is released, fixing several bootstrap problems. The source release is available from the download page or via the 'fink selfupdate' command. The binary release will follow soon.
2001-09-02: Fink IRC Channel Chat with the developers and other users! We now have a #fink channel on the openprojects.net IRC network.
2001-08-25: Fink 0.2.5 was released The source release is available from the download page, the binary release will follow soon.
2001-08-23: OpenOSX.com OpenOSX.com refuses to give fair credit after using Fink to create GIMP CDs. Read Christoph's public statement on the issue.
2001-08-22: New help page The new help page lists various ways to get help using Fink. It also lists some ideas how you can give back to the project.
2001-08-13: Porting tips and X11 document updated The porting tips document has a new chapter on shared libraries and modules. The X11 document was also updated recently.
2001-08-01: Version 0.2.4a is released There was a bootstrapping problem in Fink 0.2.4. It is fixed in Fink 0.2.4a. You only need this if you're doing a first time install, updates are not affected.
2001-08-01: Version 0.2.4 is released Version 0.2.4 is released. Get it from the download page. Some highlights: The GIMP 1.2.2, sound playback and recording via esound (thanks to Shawn Hsiao and Masanori Sekino for the CoreAudio patch), xmms 1.2.5.
2001-07-19: New document: X11 on Darwin and Mac OS X A comprehensive document about X11 on Darwin and Mac OS X is now available. It was written to be useful for anyone, not just Fink users.
2001-07-13: Package database now online A prototype of the package database is now online.
2001-07-09: Version 0.2.3 is released Get it from the download page. This version fixes the dpkg download problems many of you were having.
2001-07-03: Packaging Manual updated The Packaging Manual was updated to include all recently added fields.
2001-06-30: Web site restructuring A major restructuring of the web site has started. The non-Fink-specific documents were removed because I don't have the time to maintain them. All documentation will be consolidated in the new Documentation section.
2001-06-24: Version 0.2.2 is released Version 0.2.2 is finally released. Get it from the download page. Be sure to read the notes about X11 in the INSTALL file.
2001-05-19: CVS instructions updated The CVS instructions have been updated for Fink 0.2.x.
2001-04-26: FAQ online This site now sports a FAQ section. Not much content yet, but it's here to stay.
2001-04-20: Version 0.2.0 is released It now uses dpkg for binary package management. You can get it from the download page, but be aware that this version is not yet as stable as the 0.1.x series.
2001-04-15: Released version 0.1.8a Released version 0.1.8a, fixing install problems. You only need this if you downloaded 0.1.8 and had install problems ("stow not found"). Get it from the download page.
2001-04-14: Version 0.1.8 is out Get it from the download page.
2001-03-30: Porting notes updated The porting notes have been updated with information on Mac OS X Final.
2001-03-30: Version 0.1.7 is out! Get it from the download page.
2001-03-24: Mac OS X is released! Expect Fink packages to be adapted to the final release within the next one or two weeks.
2001-03-15: Libtool page updated Updated the libtool page with a revised patch that does full shared library versioning.
2001-03-08: Version 0.1.6 is out Get it from the download page.