News

The Fink project is no longer able to offer support for users of Fink on Mac OS X 10.3. In reality there has been very little support for some time, so this announcement simply formalizes that fact.

This means that there will not be any further updates, not even security updates, for Mac OS X 10.3 users. Their existing installations will continue to work, but the software that is installed will not be updated.

We believe that the majority of our users are using Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 and hope that this does not inconvenience too many people.

The massive GNOME update which has been in process for many months was merged into fink's unstable tree.  This is well tested, and updates by users appear to be going fairly smoothly.

We are now merging the gnome update into the stable tree.  Because we have been unable to test the dependencies of these new packages in the stable tree in advance, users can expect the "stable" tree to be "not so stable" during the next few weeks, while the bugs get worked out.

If you are eager to start using this massive gnome update immediately, we suggest that you switch to the unstable tree.  If not, we suggest that you hold off running "fink selfupdate" for a while (perhaps a week or two) until things have again stabilized.

A new (binary) Fink release for OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is available today: version 0.9.0, which can be installed on either Intel or PowerPC hardware. The release includes source files, binary packages, and Fink installers for both kinds of hardware.

Users who have already installed Fink on Leopard from source, who now wish to switch to the binary distribution, may do so as follows. First, run fink selfupdate to update to the latest version of the fink package manager. Next, run fink configure, and be sure to change your choice about using the binary distribution from No to yes. Finally, run fink scanpackages to activate the binary distribution.

Update, 2008-07-11: If you use the binary installer, you should run fink selfupdate after installation.

Status

Fink 0.9.0 was released on 26 June 2008. This release includes source and binary packages as well as binary installers for both PowerPC and Intel, all intended for users of OS X version 10.5. Fink 0.8.1 (for OS X 10.4), 0.7.2 (for OS X 10.3), 0.6.4 (for OS X 10.2), and 0.4.1 (for OS X 10.1) also remain available.

10.5 Support: Users are encouraged to update to OS 10.5.2 or later, via Software Update, in order to get bugfixes and enhancements for X11. Further updates continue to be made available on the XQuartz Update Page.

Resources

If you're looking for support, check out the help page. That page also lists various options to help the project and submit feedback.

If you are looking for the source files which correspond to binaries distributed by the Fink project, please consult this page for instructions.

The Fink project is hosted by SourceForge. In addition to hosting this site and the downloads, SourceForge provides the following resources for the project:

• SourceForge project summary page
• Report or view bugs
• Request a package that's not in Fink
• Request a feature that's not in fink (the program)
• Submit a new Fink package (non-core developers)
• Submit a patch for fink (the program)
• Mailing lists
• CVS (browse online, access instructions)

Please note that to use some of these resources (ie, to report a bug or request a new Fink package), you will need to be logged in to your SourceForge account. If you do not have one, you can sign up for one for free on the SourceForge web site.

Additional resources hosted outside SourceForge include:

• The Fink developer wiki (now at a new location).