Fink

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 ... [More] 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 StatesJapanGermanyFranceUnited KingdomCanadaItalySpainSwitzerlandAustralia 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! [Less]

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 ... [More] 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 StatesJapanGermanyFranceUnited KingdomCanadaItalySpainSwitzerlandAustralia 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! [Less]

The 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.

Users 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 ... [More] work properly. (Note: there is an X11-2.2.1.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.) [Less]

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.

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-0.27.7 here. The 10.4->10.5 update ... [More] can be accomplished by running fink selfupdate to get fink-0.27.7 . If you're doing this on 10.5, make sure that you have Xcode 3.0 installed. 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-0.27.7 tarball and bootstrap a new Fink tree as above. [Less]

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 ... [More] 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. [Less]

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 ... [More] 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. [Less]

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 ... [More] 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. [Less]

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 ... [More] 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. [Less]