Re: Installing g95 on OS X

From: Dave Seaman (dseaman_at_no.such.host)
Date: 10/19/04

  • Next message: Gordon Sande: "Re: Installing g95 on OS X" 
    Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 19:40:19 +0000 (UTC)

    On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 17:50:41 GMT, Gordon Sande wrote:

    > *** Hendrickson wrote:
    >> Does anybody besides me see a problem here? *nix systems
    >> are apparently unusable by people with normal computer
    >> skills! This stuff is complicated beyond words. Jason
    >> gives a seven step program (with an error that's even
    >> obvious to me!) and Dave write a couple hundred lines
    >> of explanation/correction/improvements. And I see there
    >> are 3 or 4 follow-ups to his post.

    >> Maybe I just need another cup of coffee, but after 20+
    >> years of unix development(?), why is it so hard to
    >> install a $%^&ing compiler?

    > Good question!

    Agreed. But not all compilers require such fiddling. Commercial-quality
    compilers tend to come with fancy installers that make the process
    painless.

    > I followed the recipe given for gfortran and found

    > 0. I can only sudo fink ... from my admin account and not my
    > user account. Probably a good thing in the large except
    > I though the sudo/password fuss was intended to avoid
    > the the extra fuss.

    Using the 'sudo' command gives you root privileges. Do you want everyone
    on your machine to have root privileges? Maybe you have no other users
    to worry about, but the whole idea is that user accounts are for those
    who have only user privileges and no admin or root privileges.

    > 1. I needed to fiddle a low level file because FINK was
    > not set to use UNSTABLE packages "out of the box".
    > The fix was in the FAQ under "Why doesn't it work"!
    > And there was some sort of problem with the path
    > settings for fink so it was /sw/bin/fink instead of
    > just fink.

    If fink fixed up your shell initialization to add /sw/bin to your PATH,
    which it should do by default, then all you need to do is open a new
    Terminal window and then use the fink command. It will work from that
    point on. The fink installer should have checked for that and printed a
    message about your shell initialization.

    > 2. The results have some sort of conflict between the Apple's
    > supplied X11 and the older do-it-yourself X11. The fixes
    > suggested in the diagnostics appear to do nothing. Why
    > does a compiler require X11?

    The compiler doesn't require X11, but some fink packages depend on X11.
    You can't get fink to build those packages unless you have X11 installed
    and configured as fink expects. Other fink packages are not affected.

    > Why does having the Apple
    > supplied Aqua compatible X11 grind things to a halt?

    It's been a while since I looked at this, but I think you just need to
    install the X11 SDK from the system install disks (it's an optional
    install) and fink should be happy.

    > (I am sure that if I wanted to be a full time sysadmin
    > the answer would be interesting but ...). Apple's slick
    > X11 arrived circa Os X.3 and the fink scripts are probably
    > older so I will have to wait for the fixes to work their way
    > through the system.

    > So now I do not have gfortran and I am reinforced in the notion
    > that if and only if I fiddled full with Unix/Open Software/etc
    > would I be able to get it to work. I will leave the explanation
    > of why a compiler needs X11 as one of the great mysteries of the
    > universe. It is clear that fink has a lot of ingenuity behind it
    > as does gfortran, but at the end of the session all I have is a
    > lot of wasted disk space that I may get around to clearing out.

    Some fink packages require X11 and some do not. That's a feature of the
    individual packages, not of fink or of the compiler. If a program
    expects to display things in X windows when you run it, then it's going
    to need access to X11 headers and libraries when you build it. 

    -- 
Dave Seaman
Judge Yohn's mistakes revealed in Mumia Abu-Jamal ruling.
<http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=228>
  • Next message: Gordon Sande: "Re: Installing g95 on OS X"