Re: [Swarm-Support] Inquiries on Mac OS X 10.3, Fink, Swarm

[Bill Northcott]

> I'm considering installing Bill Northcott's packages for Mac OS
> available in savannah.org in a machine that runs Mac OS X 10.3
> (Panther). However, I use Fink in a regular basis to install/upgrade
> apps, and would like to keep it (though that's not recommended
> according to the readme:
> http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/swarm/macosx-swarm.
> pkg/20030910/ReadMe-Download)

> (1) Has anyone successfully installed/used those packages in Panther?

The existing packages including the compiler work in Panther.  There are 
issues compiling code from the cvs, but Paul Johnson's snapshots should be 
buildable except for Java.  I have not tried this.

> (2) The documentation says "If you have Fink installed they may not
> work." How "may" is that :-)? AFAIK Fink usually puts things under
> /sw and not /usr/local. Any ideas about the chances of running
> into problems if none of the packages that Swarm requires (apart
> from gcc) have been installed in my mac yet? (Bill?)

If you have a machine with just Panther installed and well behaved 
packages that do not replace BSD subsytem components then I understand the 
software environment in which Swarm will operate on your computer.
However, once you install Fink you have effectively replaced a number of 
the BSD/GNU packages with the Fink versions.  This may have no effect, but 
it it may well break Swarm.  I would also ensure that Fink really 
understands Panther before you use it at all.  Panther has many new 
opensource packages and an out of date Fink may replace them and cause 
problems with other software.  I really would avoid Fink if at all 
possible.  With the OS X beta and 10.0 it was almost essential to get a 
decent BSD/GNU system, but it is really unnecessary with Panther.  Why are 
you using it?

Bill Northcott

PS if your message implies that you are using a gcc from Fink.  It is 
unlikely to work!