gEDA-user: gEDA gaf 20030223 and Icarus Verilog binary packages for Mac OS X

[Charles Lepple <clepple@ghz.cc>]

Fink binary packages are now available for Mac OS X users. This means (in theory) that to use gschem, you only need to fetch the Apple X11 package (optional), Fink, and FinkCommander (also optional), add a site to your download list, and download the gEDA gaf and iverilog binaries. (iverilog just happened to be sitting in the same directory on my machine as the others, so it's here as well)

[Insert usual disclaimer from GPL about merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose... This is beta, folks. I only have one Mac on which to test the packages, and only so many hours in the day during which I can break that Mac. Comments welcome.]

1) Install Fink. Instructions are here: 

http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/

Install it to /sw (the default).

2) Install X11

If you're new to this, I would advise using Apple's X11. See:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/x11/inst-xfree86.php#apple-binary

Or, you can browse the rest of that document to get info on installing XFree86, but Apple's version is accelerated (I haven't seen the numbers, though).

3) Install FinkCommander (optional). This is a Cocoa frontend to Fink's package selection system, and is a nice bridge between the OS X user interface and Fink. If you are a fan of Debian, and really wish that they had made the Terminal app a more central feature of OS X, that's cool too-- you can do everything from the command line as well.

http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/

4) Edit the download list:

% sudo cp -p /sw/etc/apt/sources.list{,.orig}
% sudo pico /sw/etc/apt/sources.list

Add this line at the beginning:

deb http://www.geda.seul.org/devel/20030223/fink local geda

5) Update your package list to include gEDA:

a) From FinkCommander: Choose "Update Descriptions" from the "Binary" menu

- or -

b) From the command line: sudo apt-get update

Either way, you should see www.geda.seul.org listed as such:

> Hit http://www.geda.seul.org local/geda Packages
> Hit http://www.geda.seul.org local/geda Release
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/release/main Packages
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/release/main Release
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/release/crypto Packages
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/release/crypto Release
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/current/main Packages
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/current/main Release
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/current/crypto Packages
> Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.2/current/crypto Release
> Reading Package Lists...
> Building Dependency Tree...

6) Install gEDA gaf and/or Icarus Verilog

a) FinkCommander: type 'geda' in the "filter table data" box, and then choose which packages you want.

- or -

b) Run 'sudo dselect' and search for gEDA ("/geda")

I haven't tested all of the combinations, but the most common (just install gschem, plus the minimum it needs to run, or install everything) should work.

Looks like a lot of work, but it will make future upgrades easier (you should only need to repeat steps 5 and 6 for each release).

Hopefully, I will iron out all of the wrinkles, and gschem et al will be part of the official Fink distribution. Until then, this is a much more direct way of distributing updates.

If you would rather compile from source, the finkinfo files are here:

http://www.ghz.cc/cgi-bin/viewcvs/dev/eda/finkinfo/geda/?sortby=date

but this method assumes more familiarity with the command line. Email me if that's your preference, as it is not trivial.

-- 
Charles Lepple <clepple@ghz.cc>
http://www.ghz.cc/charles/