[Pythonmac-SIG] Progress report: unix python on Mac OS X

[Russell E Owen]

At 9:52 PM -0700 1/10/02, Steven Burr wrote:
>On Thursday, January 10, 2002, at 07:56 PM, Marcel Prastawa wrote:
>
>>Russell E Owen wrote:
>>> You were right, thanks! It turns out fink can find it using "fink
>>> install gmp". I'm not sure why it didn't show up in the list of known
>>> source or binary packages. Anyway, installing it allowed the full
>>> python 2.2 installation to proceed and it works fine.
>>
>>A quick note on Fink: Fink has two package classifications: stable and unstable. You need to build the unstable packages from the source.
>>See http://fink.sourceforge.net/faq/usage-fink.php#bindist
>>
>>Could you send me the fix for Fink? I want to minimize my exposure to Perl... :)
>
>If you mean a fix for python 2.2, it really shouldn't be necessary.
>
>The gmp package is in stable:
>
>21:42:21 <bash:~>
>$ ls /sw/fink/dists/stable/main/finkinfo/libs/gmp*
>/sw/fink/dists/stable/main/finkinfo/libs/gmp-3.1.1-2.info
>
>It's listed as a dependency in the python 2.2 info file, so when you do "fink install python," fink will ask if you want gmp (and any other dependencies you don't already have) installed as well.  It worked for me.

I was installing Python from binary, not from source, and gmp is not available as source. Hence I did a "fink install gmp" from the command line first (and got version 3.1.1-2, as you note), then installed Python from binary (using sudo dselect) and all was well.

The fix for "fink selfupdate" is as follows (thanks to Max Horn): edit "sw/lib/perl5/Fink/SelfUpdate.pm": in line 379, change:
  $unpack_cmd = "tar -xz${verbosity}f -";
to
  $unpack_cmd = "tar -xz${verbosity}f $pkgtarball";

Other options are to wait for a newer fink or install fink from cvs (in both cases I assume using the normal software update mechanism rather than "selfupdate").

twm seems to be broken for some Mac OS X users. I'm hunting for another window manager now (any recommendations gratefully received -- if it matters, I'm mostly interested in it being easy to install and working reliably).

-- Russell