What are some good apps for X11?

[Phil St. Romain]

What apps do you use in X11, what do they do, and where did you get them?

-----------------

I've got and am trying out the following:

Open Office -- alternative to MS Office.

AbiWord -- word processor

Gimp -- graphic editing program

Xterm -- a terminal

xdigger -- a simple (but maddening) arcade game.

Xclock -- shows the time

Xeyes -- eyes follow your cursor around

All these except Open Office I got with Fink. They work OK, for the most part.

Open Office can be downloaded at http://www.openoffice.org

[mnewman]

Anyone know where us dial-up folks can order a CD with the OS/X version of OO? I'd like to give it a try but the download is too huge for dial-up. I checked the OO CD sources page, but none specifically mentioned the OS/X beta.

After seeing the size of the 10.2.3 system update and the X11 release I can see another "digital divide" coming. As stuff grows in size it becomes impossible for those of us with dial-up connections to keep up.

Perhaps some enterprising young soul with a cable/DSL connection and fast CD burner could make some spare change out of this situation?

[ClarkGoble]

An all in one Fink install via CD would be nice.

As for the 10.2.3 download, there is a version that saves as a .dmg file which you can then copy to CD. I'm doing that for my Dad who has a slow dial-up connection.

[Don Benot]

I like playing with xjig, a small jigsaw puzzle that uses gifs.

I also have become very fond of Pan, a newsreader. It's fast and works very well.

Gnucash is a program very similiar to Quicken. Not being an accountant, I had my trials setting it up, but I am finding it useful for tracking the income and expenses of a small organization. I could probably do the same thing with a spreadsheet, but that wouldn't be as cool.

These are all a part of Fink.

Have fun,
Don

[js62]

How about ethereal, ettercap and nmap. Lots of fun to be had with them.

disclaimer: you may get yourself in deep s@#t if you use these on the wrong computer. The person at the other end may get very angry.

[sao]

The Gimp

The GIMP is a great image editing and painting program that competes with any commercial application available, yet is developed and distributed as open-source software. You can use it as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, for image composition and image authoring, etc.

ImageMagick

ImageMagickTM is a rich collection of tools and libraries to read, write, and manipulate an image in many image formats (over 68 major formats). This includes the most popular formats such as TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, PhotoCD, and GIF. The ImageMagick programs or tools are: display, animate, combine, convert, import, identify, mogrify, montage, xtp.

Abiword

AbiWord is an open source word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. This free word processor is able to read and write most documents in Word's *.doc file format. It is suitable for typing papers, letters, reports, memos, and so forth. It comes with a number of useful features: support for plug-ins and scripts; a spell checker, 2- and 3-column text formatting, and image importing.

Gnumeric

The Gnumeric spreadsheet is part of the GNOME desktop environment: a project to create a free, user-friendly desktop environment. Gnumeric will import your existing Excel, 1-2-3, Applix, Sylk, XBase and Oleo files.

Siag

Siag Office is a tightly integrated, free office package. It consists of the spreadsheet Siag, the word processor PW, the animation program Egon, the text editor XedPlus, the file manager Xfiler and the previewer Gvu.

LyX

LyX is the first WYSIWYM document processor. Is an advanced open source document processor running on many Unix platforms (including MacOS X), OS/2, and under Windows/Cygwin. Note that all these ports use the same xforms interface and need an X server. Unlike standard word processors, LyX encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the software.

Xmms

XMMS is a great MP3 player.
It can play MP3s, convert MP3s to WAV files suitable for using to make an audio CD and be used as an audio CD player. But, MP3s are what this program was designed for. And it does it very well. If you're into MP3s you should try it out.

Xemacs

XEmacs is a highly customizable open source text editor and application development system. Its emphasis is on modern graphical user interface support and an open software development mode.

vim61

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Many new features have been added: multi-level undo, syntax highlighting, command line history, on-line help, filename completion, block operations, etc. There is also a Graphical User Interface (GUI) available. This editor is very useful for editing programs and other plain ASCII files.

LAME

LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 encoding. The goal of the LAME project is to use the open source model to improve the psycho acoustics, noise shaping and speed of MP3. LAME is not for everyone - it is distributed as source code only and requires the ability to use a C compiler. However, many popular ripping and encoding programs include the LAME encoding engine.

xchat

Xchat is an IRC client for UNIX operating systems. I.R.C. is Internet Relay Chat. Xchat runs on most BSD and POSIX compliant operating systems. Xchat is a graphical IRC client. It runs under the X Window System and uses the GTK+ toolkit. Optionally it can be compiled to use Gnome.

ispell

ispell is a fast screen-oriented spelling checker that shows you your errors in the context of the original file, and suggests possible corrections when it can figure them out. Compared to UNIX spell, it is faster and much easier to use. ispell can also handle languages other than English.

screen

Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells. Each virtual terminal provides the functions of the DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, several control functions from the ANSI X3.64 (ISO 6429) and ISO 2022 standards (e.g., insert/delete line and support for multiple character sets). There is a scrollback history buffer for each virtual terminal and a copy-and-paste mechanism that allows the user to move text regions between windows. When screen is called, it creates a single window with a shell in it (or the specified command) and then gets out of your way so that you can use the program as you normally would. Then, at any time, you can create new (full-screen) windows with other programs in them (including more shells), kill the current window, view a list of the active windows, turn output logging on and off, copy text between windows, view the scrollback history, switch between windows, etc. All windows run their programs completely independent of each other. Programs continue to run when their window is currently not visible and even when the whole screen session is detached from the users terminal.

rsync

rsync is a file transfer program for Unix systems. rsync uses the "rsync algorithm" which provides a very fast method for bringing remote files into sync. It does this by sending just the differences in the files across the link, without requiring that both sets of files are present at one of the ends of the link beforehand.

Pine

Pine® - a Program for Internet News & Email - is a tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. Pine was developed by Computing & Communications at the University of Washington. Though originally designed for inexperienced email users, Pine has evolved to support many advanced features, and an ever-growing number of configuration and personal-preference options.

mozilla

Mozilla is an open-source web browser and toolkit, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. A full-fledged browser suite based on the latest Internet standards as well as a cross-platform toolkit, Mozilla 1.0 is targeted at the developer community and enables the creation of Internet-based applications. It was developed in an open source environment and built by harnessing the creative powers of thousands of programmers on the Internet, incorporating their best enhancements.


mysql

The MySQL database server embodies an ingenious software architecture that maximises speed and customisability. Extensive reuse of pieces of code within the software and an ambition to produce minimalistic but functionally rich features have resulted in a database management system unmatched in speed, compactness, stability and ease of deployment. The unique separation of the core server from the table handler makes it possible to run MySQL under strict transaction control or with ultrafast transactionless disk access, whichever is most appropriate for the situation.

I have installed many more, but this is just to have an idea of what can be installed and use in X11.


Cheers...

[sao]

Pymol

DeLano, W.L. The PyMOL Molecular Graphics System (2002) DeLano Scientific, San Carlos, CA, USA.
PyMOL is a molecular graphics system with an embedded Python interpreter designed for real-time visualization and rapid generation of high-quality molecular graphics images and animations.

Maxima

Symbol manipulation program
Maxima is a descendant of the symbol manipulation program Macsyma, which had its roots in the late 1960s at MIT. Its abilities include basic algebraic manipulation, symbolic integration, 2D and 3D plotting, and an ODE solver.

StarPlot

Viewer for 3-D perspective star charts.
Starplot is a program which can be used to view star charts in a three-dimensional perspective, using a GTK+ interface.

Rasmol

RasMol is a molecular graphics program intended for the visualisation of proteins, nucleic acids and small molecules. The program is aimed at display, teaching and generation of publication quality images.

Ghemical

Molecular modelling environment for GNOME.
Ghemical is written in C++. It has a graphical user interface (in fact, a couple of them), and it supports both quantum-mechanics (semi-empirical and ab initio) models and molecular mechanics models (there is an experimental Tripos 5.2-like force field for organic molecules). Also a tool for reduced protein models is included. Geometry optimization, molecular dynamics and a large set of visualization tools are currently available.

Geomview

Geomview is an interactive 3D viewing program for Unix. It lets you view and manipulate 3D objects: you use the mouse to rotate, translate, zoom in and out, etc. It can be used as a standalone viewer for static objects or as a display engine for other programs which produce dynamically changing geometry. It can display objects described in a variety of file formats. It comes with a wide selection of example objects, and you can create your own objects too.

GPeriodic

Gperiodic displays a periodic table of the elements, allowing you to browse through the elements, and view detailed information about each element.

Grace

Grace is a Motif/Lesstif application for two-dimensional data visualization. Grace can transform the data using free equations, FFT, cross- and auto-correlation, differences, integrals, histograms, and much more. The generated figures are of high quality. Grace is a very convenient tool for data inspection, data transformation, and for making figures for publications.

Scigraphica

SciGraphica is a scientific application for data analysis and technical graphics. It pretends to be a clone of the popular commercial (and expensive) application "Microcal Origin". It fully supplies plotting features for 2D, 3D and polar charts. The aim is to obtain a fully-featured, cross-plattform, user-friendly, self-growing scientific application. It is free and open-source, released under the GPL license.

Xephem

Astronomical Software Ephemeris.
The brainchild of programmer Elwood Downey, XEphem is a star-charting, sky-simulating, ephemeris-generating celestial virtuoso that can do just about everything ...

Oregano

Oregano is an application for schematic capture and simulation of electrical circuits. For the actual simulation, Oregano acts as a front-end for SPICE, which is more or less the industry standard for circuit simulation.


These will come on handy if you are in High School or University.


Cheers...

[sao]

330 Sao @ ~ $ fink list -i --section=utils
Information about 2073 packages read in 1 seconds.
i align 1.0.0-1 Text filter that vertically aligns columns
i bsdmktemp 1.4-1 Utility for safely making temporary files and directories
i cpio 2.4.2-3 Archiver to copy and back up files
i deborphan 1.0-1 Orphaned package finder
i di 3.4-1 Disk Information Utility
i diffutils 2.8.1-1 Tools to compare files
i efax 0.9a-001114-1 Simple FAX utility
i fhist 1.12-1 Minimal file history tool
i fileutils 4.1-3 Common shell commands like ls, touch, chmod
i findutils 4.1-5 Tools for searching for files
i fix-fink 1.0-1 Utility to fix libSystem problems in a fink installation
i fondu 021223-1 Convert between Mac and UNIX font formats
i fwipe 0.35-2 Deletes files irrecoverably
i gawk 3.1.0-3 The Awk processing language, GNU edition
i gkrellkam 0.3.4-1 Gkrellm plugin - Webcam viewer
i gkrellm 1.2.13-3 System monitor stack for GTK
i gkrellmouse 0.0.2-1 Gkrellm plugin - mouse odometer
i keychain 2.0.2-1 User-friendly front-end to ssh-agent(1)
i launch 1.0b1-1 Replacement for OS X "open" command
i less 376-1 Featureful text pager
i man 1.5k-1 Man pager
i num-utils 0.1-1 Command-line programs for dealing with numbers
i pstree 2.17-1 Shows the ps listing as a tree
i screen 3.9.11-1 Multiplexes a physical terminal
i sed 4.0.5-1 The stream editor, GNU version
i ssed 3.60-1 Super stream editor
i tree 1.4b2-1 Recursive directory listing program
i wdiff 0.5-11 Word-based frontend to GNU diff
i xtail 2.1-2 Watches the growth of files
i xttitle 1.0-2 Changes the title of terminal windows


Fileutils package info:

The GNU File Utilities are the basic file-manipulation utilities of the GNU operating system.

The tools supplied with this package are:

* chgrp - Changes file group ownership.
* chown - Changes file ownership.
* chmod - Changes file permissions.
* cp - Copies files.
* dd - Copies and converts a file.
* df - Shows disk free space on filesystems.
* dir - Gives a brief directory listing.
* dircolors - Setup program for the color output of GNU ls.
* du - Shows disk usage on filesystems.
* install - Copies file and sets its permissions.
* ln - Creates file links.
* ls - Lists directory contents.
* mkdir - Creates directories.
* mkfifo - Creates FIFOs (named pipes).
* mknod - Creates special files.
* mv - Moves files.
* rm - Removes (deletes) files.
* rmdir - Removes empty directories.
* shred - Destroy data in files.
* sync - Synchronizes filesystem buffers and disk.
* touch - Changes file timestamps.
* vdir - Long directory listing.

And one of my favorites:

macosx-file-pm

Is a collection of modules that allows you to do what binaries in /Developer/Tools allows you to
do directly via perl. You can implement your own CpMac, MvMac, GetFileInfo and SetFile without
calling these binaries.

Scripts:

pcpmac - CpMac reimplemented
pmvmac - MvMac reimplemented
pgetfinfo - GetFileInfo reimplemented
psetfinfo - SetFile reimplemented
psync - update copy utility


About Psync:

Psync does an update copy. It compares source directory and target directory
at first, then erases items that are nonexistent on source directory if
specified and finally copies everything on source directory. Items with the
same modification date and (data fork) size remain untouched, saving time on
operation.

I love this script, thanks to psync I saved myself a lot of headaches in many
occasions, I use it regularly like this:

% sudo psync -d /Users/pm /Volumes/backupdisk/backup

to produce a copy of my home directory (and all subdirectories) inside the
backup directory on "backupdisk". And, the next time you use it with the same
command, it will sync the backup with the active copy, deleting files on the
backup that have been deleted on the main copy (if you don't want this to
happen just take out the "-d" flag), and only copying files that have changed.

It is also possible to backup everything in the startup volume, all you have
to say is:

sudo psync -d / /Volumes/I<backup>

and the resulting backup volume is fully-bootable copy thereof. Note `sudo'
or root privilege is necessary to restore file ownership.

Cheers...

[edit: readability -mt]

[sao]

Continue from above:

Findutils-----(find-locate-xargs)

Tools for searching for files:

`find' is a program which searches a directory tree to find a file or
group of files. It walks the directory tree and reports all occurences of a
file matching the user's specifications. find has several enhancements over the
standard find command found on most systems. Among other things, it has the
option to measure times from the beginning of today rather than from 24 hours
ago, and it has user-settable maximum search depth.

`locate' scans one or more databases of filenames and displays any
matches.(similar to the "fast find" on many systems).

`xargs' builds and executes command lines by gathering together
arguments it reads on the standard input. Most often, these arguments are lists
of file names generated by `find'. Its -0 option works with GNU find to avoid
problems with the standard xargs.


di-3.4-1

'di' is a disk information utility.
It displays everything (and more) that your 'df' command does. It features the
ability to display your disk usage in whatever format you desire/prefer/are
used to. It is designed to be portable across many platforms.

334 Sao @ ~ $ di -l -t
Filesystem Mount Megs Used Avail %used fs Type
/dev/disk1s9 / 41137.4 19850.6 21036.8 49% hfs
/dev/disk0s9 /Volumes/Always 26370.9 11230.3 15140.6 43% hfs
/dev/disk0s10 /Volumes/Back 12891.4 16.5 12875.0 0% hfs
/dev/disk1s11 /Volumes/Standb 14501.4 9489.6 5011.8 65% hfs
/dev/disk1s10 /Volumes/Tonal9 2999.7 240.0 2759.7 8% hfs
devfs /dev 0.1 0.1 0.0 100% devfs
Total 97900.9 40827.0 56823.9 42%

fhist------Minimal file history tool

The FHist package contains 3 utilities, a file history tool ``fhist'', a file
comparison tool ``fcomp'', and a file merging tool ``fmerge''. All three are
bundled together, because they all use the same minimal-difference algorithm.

fhist
Keeps track of versions of a file. It works correctly when given binary files
as input. The fhist program is used to keep track of the successive versions
of a file. Using this program, you can remember all of your changes to a file,
and get back any one of the old versions.

fcomp
Compares two versions of a file, usually line-for-line textual comparison. It
is capable of comparing two binary files byte-for-byte. The fcomp program is
used to compare text files, similar to the diff(1) program. Its advantage is
that it always produces minimal differences, and so will never mis-sync when
comparing files. Its disadvantage is that it runs slower due to the extra work
required to produce optimal differences. However, for files differing by less
than a few thousand lines, its performance is adequate.

fmerge
Merges together edits from two descendants of a file. The fmerge program is
used to compare the changes between two different descendants of a base file,
and creates an output file which contains both sets of changes. This is useful
when two users both take the same version of a file and make independent edits
to it, and then later want to create a file which contains both sets of edits.


num-utils

The 'num-utils' are a set of programs for dealing with numbers from the Unix
command line. Much like the other Unix command line utilities like grep, awk,
sort, cut, etc. these utilities work on data from both standard in and data
from files. The utility set currently includes the following programs:

average: A program for calculating the average of numbers. It will
determine the average from all numbers on input.
bound: Finds the boundary numbers (min and max) of input.
numgrep: Like normal grep, but for sets of numbers.searches for
different occurances of numbers through the use of numeric expressions.
numprocess: Do mathmatical operations on numbers.
numsum: Add up all the numbers.
random: Generate a random number from a given expression.
range: Generate a set of numbers in a range expression.
round: Round each number according to it's value.


pstree

Is a small program that shows the process-listing as a tree (as the name
implies...). It has several options to make selection criteria and to change
the output style.

335 Sao @ ~ $ pstree -w -u pm
-+- 00001 root /sbin/init
|--- 00170 pm
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/A
TS.framework
|-+- 00190 pm /System/Library/CoreServices/WindowServer -daemon
| |--- 00447 root /System/Library/CoreServices/ARD
Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARD Agent -psn_0_524289
| |--- 00455 pm /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock
-psn_0_655361
| |--- 00456 pm aped
| |--- 00459 pm
/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/MacOS/SystemUIServer
-psn_0_786433
| |--- 00460 pm /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder
-psn_0_917505
| |--- 00461 pm /Users/pm/Library/Application Enhancers/Skin a
Dock.ape/Contents/Resources/MWTSAD Dock.ape/C
| |--- 00463 pm /Applications/PTHCPUMonitor.app/Contents/MacOS/PTHCPUMonitor
-psn_0_1179649
| |--- 00464 pm
/Users/pm/Library/PreferencePanes/Silk.prefPane/Contents/Resources/Silk.app/Cont
ents/MacOS/S
| |--- 00465 pm
/Users/pm/Library/PreferencePanes/iChoose.prefPane/Contents/Resources/ICss.app/C
ontents/MacO
| |--- 00466 pm /Users/pm/Library/PreferencePanes/LiteSwitch
X.prefPane/Contents/Resources/LiteSwitch X.app/
| |--- 00469 pm
/System/Library/PreferencePanes/UniversalAccessPref.prefPane/Contents/Resources/
UniversalAcc
| |--- 01118 pm /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
-psn_0_3407873
| |--- 01119 pm
/System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/MacOS/AppleSpell
-psn_0_3538945
| |--- 01183 pm /Applications/Internet Explorer.app/Contents/MacOS/Internet
Explorer /Applications/Internet
| \-+- 01247 pm /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal
-psn_0_4849665
| \-+- 01248 root login -pf pm
| \-+- 01249 pm -tcsh (tcsh)
| \-+- 01274 pm bash
| \-+- 01285 pm pstree -w -u pm
| \--- 01286 root ps -axo user pid ppid command
\-+- 00409 pm
/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow console

\--- 00452 pm /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs

tree

Tree is a recursive directory listing program that produces a depth indented
listing of files, which is colorized ala dircolors if the LS_COLORS
environment variable is set and output is to tty. With no arguments, tree lists
the files in the current directory. When directory arguments are given,
tree lists all the files and/or directories found in the given directories
each in turn. Upon completion of listing all files/directories found, tree
returns the total number of files and/or directories listed.

By default, when a symbolic link is encountered, the path that the symbolic
link refers to is printed after the name of the link in the format:

name -> real-path

If the `-l' option is given and the symbolic link refers to an actual
directory, then tree will follow the path of the symbolic link as if it were
a real directory.

337 Sao @ ~/evolution $ tree
.
|-- RDF-urls.txt
|-- addressbook-sources.xml
|-- cert7.db
|-- config
| |-- et-expanded-file:__Users_pm_evolution_local_Inbox
| |-- et-header-file:__Users_pm_evolution_local_Inbox
| `-- storage-set-view-expanded:view_0
|-- config.xmldb
|-- key3.db
|-- local
| |-- Calendar
| | |-- calendar.ics
| | |-- calendar.ics~
| | `-- folder-metadata.xml
| |-- Contacts
| | |-- create-initial
| | `-- folder-metadata.xml
| |-- Drafts
| | |-- folder-metadata.xml
| | |-- local-metadata.xml
| | `-- mbox
| |-- Inbox
| | |-- folder-metadata.xml
| | |-- local-metadata.xml
| | |-- mbox
| | |-- mbox.ev-summary
| | `-- mbox.ibex
| |-- Outbox
| | |-- folder-metadata.xml
| | |-- local-metadata.xml
| | `-- mbox
| |-- Sent
| | |-- folder-metadata.xml
| | |-- local-metadata.xml
| | `-- mbox
| |-- Tasks
| | |-- folder-metadata.xml
| | |-- tasks.ics
| | `-- tasks.ics~
| `-- Trash
| `-- folder-metadata.xml
|-- mail
| `-- pop3
| `-- cache-pop:__helped@pacific.net.sg_
|-- private
| `-- config.xmldb
|-- searches.xml
|-- secmod.db
`-- shortcuts.xml

13 directories, 36 files

[edit: fold -s -mt]

[sao]

340 Sao @ ~ $ fink list -i --section=games
Information about 2073 packages read in 2 seconds.

i 3dpong 0.4-2 Pong clone
i amaze 0.0-2 Text-based 3D maze game
i cgoban 1.9.12-1 X11 frontend for the game of Go
i cmatrix 1.2a-1 Scrolling random text effect like The Matrix
i crossfire 1.4.0-1 Graphical adventure RPG for X11
i dama 0.5.4-1 Turkish draughts board game. (checkers-like)
i fortune-mod 9708-2 Database of witticisms
i freeciv 1.13.0-2 Multiplayer Strategy Game
i gtetrinet 0.4.4-2 Tetrinet (internet Tetris) client for GNOME
i gtkmonop 0.3.0-5 Client for something resembling the well known board game
i libgmonopd 0.3.0-3 Embedded server for gtkmonop
i libgmonopd-shlibs 0.3.0-3 Embedded server for gtkmonop
i lincity 1.12pre49-1 City Simulation Game
i monopd 0.7.0-2 Monopoly-like game server
i nethack 3.4.0-1 Console/X11 based graphical adventure game
i sdl 1.2.5-1 Cross-platform multimedia library
i sdl-image 1.2.2-1 SDL image file loading library
i sdl-image-shlibs 1.2.2-1 SDL image file loading library
i sdl-shlibs 1.2.5-1 Cross-platform multimedia library
i smpeg 0.4.4-15 SDL MPEG Player Library
i smpeg-shlibs 0.4.4-15 SDL MPEG Player Library
i xbomber 0.8-1 Bomberman clone
i xgalaga 2.0.34-1 Clone of the classic game of galaga
i xinvaders3d 1.3.6-1 3D Space Invaders Game
i xmahjongg 3.5-11 X-Windows version of Mah Jongg
i xpilot 4.5.4-1 Multi-player 2D space game
i xquarto 2.5-1 Piece matching game for X11
i xscorch 0.1.15-2 Scorched Earth - "the mother of all games"
i xscrabble 0901-2 Scrabble game for X
Have fun... :)


Cheers...

[sao]

344 Sao @ ~ $ fink list -i --section=web
Information about 2073 packages read in 1 seconds.

i analog 5.30-1 Program to measure usage on your web server
i dillo 0.6.6-2 Small simple web browser
i junkbuster 2.0.2-1 The Internet Junkbuster Proxy (TM)
i links 0.98-1 Lynx-like text WWW browser with tables
i lynx 2.8.4-2 Console based web browser
i surfraw 1.0.7-1 Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Against the Web
i tidy 20021210-2 Utility to tidy up HTML code
i w3m 0.3-13 Pager/text-based WWW browser
i wget 1.8.2-1 Automatic web site retreiver

Lynx

Lynx is a fully-featured World Wide Web (WWW) client for users running
cursor-addressable, character-cell display devices (e.g., vt100 terminals,
vt100 emulators running on PCs or Macs, or any other character-cell display).
It will display Hypertext Markup Language(HTML) documents containing links to
files on the local system, as well as files on remote systems running http,
gopher, ftp, wais, nntp, finger, or cso/ph/qi servers, and services accessible
via logins to telnet, tn3270 or rlogin accounts.


surfraw

Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Against the Web
Surfraw provides a fast unix command line interface to a variety of popular WWW
search engines and other artifacts of power. It reclaims google, altavista,
babelfish, dejanews, freshmeat, research index, slashdot and many others from
the false-prophet, pox-infested heathen lands of html-forms, placing these
wonders where they belong, deep in unix heartland, as god loving extensions to
the shell.


Dillo

Dillo is a web browser project completely written in C.
Dillo is small: source is less than 300 KB, and the binary is around 200 KB!
Dillo is very fast!

Links

Links is text WWW browser with tables.

wget

GNU Wget is a free network utility to retrieve files from the World Wide Web
using HTTP and FTP, the two most widely used Internet protocols. It works
non-interactively, thus enabling work in the background, after having logged
off, it may easily be called from scripts, cron jobs, terminals without
Xsupport, etc.


Cheers...

[edit: fold -s -mt]

[Don Benot]

Great list Sao. I'll have to check some of these out.

I also use LAME to encode MP3's . I forgot to put that on my list.

LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 encoding. The goal of the LAME project is to use the open source model to improve the psycho acoustics, noise shaping and speed of MP3. LAME is not for everyone - it is distributed as source code only and requires the ability to use a C compiler. However, many popular ripping and encoding programs include the LAME encoding engine.

Lame is a part of Fink, thankfully. The only way I'd be able to use a C compiler is if you, or someone else of your knowledge, were sitting here next to me.

Regards,
Don

[sbur]

I will second pymol as a cool app for anyone who needs to generate great looking molecular graphics. I have used it to generate pov ray traces for publication and for presentation. In conjuction with graphics converter, I can't see using anything else for publishing my work with small molecules.

There is an OS X native version, but it is still pretty screwey.

Also check out molden (ftp://ftp.cmbi.kun.nl/pub/molgraph/molden/bin/molden3.7.macosX) as a graphical back-end for gaussian and gamess, etc. the graphics aren't as stunning, but you can animate vibrational modes and generate density plots.

Lots of crystallographic stuff is out there too.

[Phil St. Romain]

Marvelous responses, Sao! :)

This is quickly becoming an excellent resource center!

[Jacques]

Sao - as much as you seem to dive into X11, do you use the Finder at all? :)

Thanks for all the references, that sure rounds out some possibilities!

[ClarkGoble]

Just to be the cyncial devils advocate. I think that you'll find most of those applications either have better versions or solutions within native Aqua apps or else are very specialized.

For instance I find all the X11 office applications much weaker than MS Office or frequently even Appleworks.

MySQL is a general Darwin app and there are *many* Cocoa, Carbon and even PHP interfaces for it. There are even OSX installers for MySQL. It's a great database, but you don't have to break out X11 at all to use it.

There are many browsers for X11, and Dillo in particular is very fast. However most are far less powerful than Chimera, Safari or IE. Further when you have those along with many other Aqua browsers, why use X11?

There are MP3 players and encoders. However while many use less processor time than iTunes, none are anywhere near as good as iTunes. (IMO)

Unless you are Unix head who learned Unix on the CLI you'll have Vi, Emacs or any of their X11 expansions. Trust me on this. A case could be made for terminal based Unix editors like Pico. However once you go to Windows I think you'll find BBEdit is a much better solution. The only reason for the X11 apps is when you are already used to them or have a collection of built up macros.

The chatting programs I can't really speak to. However there are many, many chat programs for Aqua. Most are vastly superior to iChat and I suspect are the equal of X11 applications.

Rsync and related programs all have Aqua versions.

Gplot, Spice and so forth all have OSX ports. You don't need X11 unless you once again already have a collection of code that utilizes the X11 version. The only exception would be Maple 7 which only runs under X11 at the moment, although an Aqua version is due shortly. However even there Mathematica is native, although Maple is slightly better for some uses.

Don't get me wrong. There are MANY things I install with Fink. However while I installed many X11 applications, I find I never use them except to explore. On the other hand many terminal things I install with Fink or related builds, I do use a lot. Things like TCL and Expect, newsgrab, and so on. When I need an interface I typically roll something quickly with Appleworks. I don't claim to be a great shell person nor a great Appleworks person. But it seems to work very well.

I still play around with X11. However I'm still looking for the application that I'd actually *use*.

[RacerX]

Originally posted by sao
Geomview

Geomview is an interactive 3D viewing program for Unix. It lets you view and manipulate 3D objects: you use the mouse to rotate, translate, zoom in and out, etc. It can be used as a standalone viewer for static objects or as a display engine for other programs which produce dynamically changing geometry. It can display objects described in a variety of file formats. It comes with a wide selection of example objects, and you can create your own objects too.

Geomview? When I was working at the Geometry Center we had it running on SGIs, Suns and NeXT workstations (which was what our core systems were back then, ca. 1994). I was under the impression that you needed more than just an X Window System to run it. Both SGI's IRIX and Sun's Solaris (and early versions of the SunOS) all had Motif in common (which I was under the impression was one of the requirements to run it on non-SGI/Sun systems).

I had always hoped that someone would pick up where the NeXT version left off and would make a Mac OS X version. The person who did a majority of the work to port Geomview to NEXTSTEP was a good friend of mine and I was using his builds (sometimes daily) on my project while I was there.

Another friend of mine there had started on an X Windows port, but I never heard if he finished and I know that the last time I checked in with him he was no longer part of the Geomview project (which is no longer part of the now gone Geometry Center :( ) over at geomview.org (which I think maybe in St. Paul now as I recall).

I still love that program, and have it on all my SGIs and my OPENSTEP system (which isn’t running at the moment). It is fun running it on an SGI as I could rarely do that when I was at the Geometry Center (we only had 8 SGIs, but we had about 30 NeXT cubes and slabs).

[yellow]

Just a reminder that X11 was developed as a GUI for UNIX back in the day. A lot of the apps mentioned along the way here are apps that are don't require X11.

The true beauty of X11 on OS X is that academic institutions and corporations that have been using various flavored *NIX boxes up until now have a new choice that can be intigrated seemlessly with a more desktopy/"user friendly" OS.

For me, instead of having a Mac or PC and a *NIX station to do work, I combine the clutter into one sweet place that I can do treatment planning and everything else I would normally do in one local.

[Craig R. Arko]

Both Geomview and Orrery packages are up there. The maintainer is a Dave Morrison if you know him.

[RacerX]

Originally posted by Craig R. Arko
Both Geomview and Orrery packages are up there. The maintainer is a Dave Morrison if you know him.

That doesn't sound familiar. The people I knew were Stuart Levy and Mark Phillips (they did the original SGI version), Dan Krech (NeXT version), Nathaniel Thurston and Daeron Meyer (working on the X Windows version). I imagine a a lot of people worked on the project long after I left. :rolleyes:

[Phil St. Romain]

Originally posted by sao



Dillo

Dillo is a web browser project completely written in C.
Dillo is small: source is less than 300 KB, and the binary is around 200 KB!
Dillo is very fast!

Man alive!!! :D

Fastest browser I've ever used, in fact. I've tweaked it to accept cookies and am posting using it right now. Seems to do the basics OK, including cgi form processing. No java, javascript, etc. but I don't always need that.

No pop-up windows either! :)

[Phil St. Romain]

Originally posted by ClarkGoble

Just to be the cyncial devils advocate. I think that you'll find most of those applications either have better versions or solutions within native Aqua apps or else are very specialized.



For instance I find all the X11 office applications much weaker than MS Office or frequently even Appleworks.


You're absolutely right, Clark. Most X11 applications aren't as polished as their Mac and Windows counterparts.

I will say, however, that OpenOffice preserves the formatting of Word files better than Appleworks with Maclink Plus does. It's even better than Thinkfree Offrice at doing so. There's a very practical use, then--at least for me.

Apple's work with Safari shows other possibilities for interactions between Mac OS and open source software. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Your post seems to move this thread in the direction of discussing the pros and cons of X11 on OS X. That would be a great discussion. Care to re-post parts of your reflection in the Coat Room, perhaps with some further elaboration?

[bluehz]

ClarkGoble - I couldn't have said it better myself. I play around a lot with X11 but I have yet to find a single application that is not essentially available in the standard Mac GUI and the whole idea of running what I basically equate to "emulation" to run an app for any length of time does not really interest me. I am sure there are many apps beyond the realm of a normal user that has uses in X11 that most of us will never see. I was reading recently that large portions of the scientific community and in particular the astronomical community are migrating to Mac OS X. No doubt this has something to do with being able to have a well-polished GUI interface for most things, yet the ability to run their highly-specialized UNIX apps in X11.

In my case I have found 2 "interesting" uses for X11. I run my own server here on an old headless PC. It runs Linux mailservers, web, etc. Since I have no monitor on the machine I admin everything via the terminal through OS X. Sometimes though its nice to run an app off the Linux box on my Mac via X11 for admin purposes. The other thing I have found that actually does not have a counterpart in OS X is a decent Jabber chat client. Yes there are lots of Mac OS X Jabber chat clients - but NONE of them can take advantage of all the features, bells, and whistles available from a Jabber server. It is unfortunate that there is no GUI client that does more than basic Jabber functions. I found that you can run tkabber Jabber client in X11 and instantly have access to everything imaginable and available on other platforms. It is a polished app - with a nice X11 GUI interface and if it were not for the fact that once again - I just find it difficult to use and app in "emulation" mode via X11 - I would probably use it more often. Most times I suffer with a crappy OS X GUI version that lacks the features, but gets me by.

Originally posted by ClarkGoble
Just to be the cyncial devils advocate. I think that you'll find most of those applications either have better versions or solutions within native Aqua apps or else are very specialized.

[ClarkGoble]

In my case I have found 2 "interesting" uses for X11. I run my own server here on an old headless PC.

For administration tasks, especially on remote servers, X11 is very useful. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not condemning X11. Were I still in college there are many science programs that are X11 only. However the past week there have been a lot of regular users asking about X11 apps with the same general list of programs offered. By and large they are better off going after Aqua solutions.

Even Gimp and OpenOffice are limited in a Macintosh environment due to limits on copy and paste, font problems and frequent difficulties in printing. Apple's X11 has improved this and there are tips on getting fonts working better. However to suggest that for regular users OpenOffice is ready for prime time is somewhat silly. Certainly it will work for very casual users or users with unique needs. So will Abiword, Gnumeric and so forth. But by and large most users have no need for X11. I'm convinced that most X11 apps are mere curiosities - sort of like people pirating difficult and complex applications which they keep on their HD and then never use to actually do anything. Yet knowing that they have Final Cut Pro gives them a warm fuzzy feeling.

Once again there are benefits to X11. If you do have a lot invested in VIM or Emacs, it is essential. If you do have Perl, Python, or TCL pps athat you use for managing various projects with the GTK, open QT or TK toolkits then X11 gives you your apps. For quick hacks and administration toolks it is often a godsend. (Although I notice more and more of those are PHP programs or CGI programs) But unless you are administering remote servers, using very customized software, or so forth, you are better off just avoiding the whole mess.

Apple's work with Safari shows other possibilities for interactions between Mac OS and open source software. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

This is where I think things are headed. And of course Safari, Chimera and others are but a few examples. There are, as I mentioned, OSX Aqua ports of GnuPlot, mPlayer, Gnutella, and so forth. Heavens, every application at SourceForge I've sought out the past couple of months had native OSX versions using Aqua. While many of the ports are kind of quick and dirty Cocoa hacks (see mPlayer for example) many are quite good. Most are somewhat unpolished. But in that they are no different than most X11 apps which are likewise unpolished.

The fact that Cocoa is so easy to build interfaces with makes it fairly easy to port a lot of software if the interface is structurally separate from the main code. (Typically that is the case in any halfway well designed system) X11 provides a nice stop gap for some applications. But generally you can come up with a good Mac port fairly quickly.

Even if you don't want to use Cocoa there are many possibilities. For Gnome based apps, there is GTK+ which allows porting very quickly.

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/

For KDE based apps, there is QT/Mac

http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/mac/index.html

There really is no reason why many elements of say KOffice or the Gnome stuff like AbiWord or Gnumeric couldn't get ported over with a Mac look at feel.

(I kept this post here, since I think the issue of porting X11 apps to native OSX apps is apt. I'll repost this over in the Coat room though)

[sao]

Well, yes, it's true that many Unix apps are not so refined and polished as what we usually get on the Mac GUI. And as Mac users we demand always the best.

Nevertheless, I for one, I'm very grateful to the Open Source community for giving me the chance to experience a new world, I barely knew it existed outside my Mac Universe.

Many of you, I read, have lots of experience 'outside' Macintosh (Linux servers, Sun, etc.). For me, it was the opposite, in "over" ten years I always stayed within the Mac, and in the Mac I found all what was necessary.

So now, the Unix world is coming my way, to where I live, and I don't need to go (move) anywhere. And I'm grateful for that. I welcome all what comes, especially if I can learn somethings new.

I have installed now on my Mac, over 1000 Unix packages, learned tons of new things, tried slowly to harness the power and control over my machine that comes from using the CLI, and all of this at the right price, for free (except the cost of my internet connection).

The open source community is made of volunteers, who work for free and just for the love of it. This commitment, in today's world it's very rare to find (except in some charitable organizations).

ClarkGoble wrote:
There really is no reason why many elements of say KOffice or the Gnome stuff like AbiWord or Gnumeric couldn't get ported over with a Mac look at feel.
You are right. The questions I always like to ask myself are:

Okey, what I'm going to do about it? What is my contribution? How can I help? Can I give somethings back?


Cheers...

PS: I agree with what Phil said above, this will be a good subject for the coat room, as this thread is basically for people who come for the first time to X11.

[bluehz]

Very well put sao. I must say - like you - I have been a Mac fanatic since my first Mac 128k in 1986. I never ventured outside that world until I started using OS X. Since then I have ventured beyond into using Linux (and GULP... I actually have a PC in my house) and everyday I learn something new. For me the learning aspect is as much a part of the whole computing experience as anything else. People always ask me what games I have on my machines. I respond "none"... when I want to play a game... I dig myself into some experiment/compilation and try to dig myself out. That to me is the game that excites me. I would have to agree that the whole X11 world has opened up a new area of learning for me and sometimes the results of learning something in X11 ends up teaching me something useful in UNIX beyond the realm of X11. So for that I must agree - X11 has been useful and served its purpose well.

[mnewman]

I agree that the opportunity to learn a few things is one of the reasons a lot of us have dug in to the unix side of OS/X and have installed X11. For me it's a bit of nostalgia. I've been a Mac user since I saw my first Mac at the Byte show in LA in 1984. My first foray into unix was in the late 80's when I was desperate to get on line and the only possibility from here on Saipan was a dial-up connection to a shell account on a BSD box (via an X.25 pad) in Cupertino run by a company called Portal. Although we were running DOS at work, moving over to the unix CLI was quite a shock.

Fortunately we got a "real" ISP on island by about 1996 and I conveniently forgot all I knew about unix.

At my age it's been a real trip to re-learn it and slowly figure out what's going on behind the scenes. Whether or not there are X11 appls that would be truly useful to me is beside the point.

Finally, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a few patient experts on this forum who are willing to help. Thank-you.

[sao]

RacerX wrote:
I still love that program (Geomview)
It's very cool. Although I don't understand it fully, I can do very weird things with it. :)

I just posted my first two screenshots of Apple X11, one of them running Geomview and Pymol, here:

http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/PhotoAlbum7.html


Cheers...

[ClarkGoble]

To get back closer to the original intent of the thread, let me suggest a few places with lots of X11 applications.

The first one is SourceForge which has a lot of good stuff - including a lot of non-X11 stuff. Typically they'll list OSX as a platform, but often if it says Linux and you've added most of the necessary tools with Fink, you can still install it.

http://www.sourceforge.org


Next up is the Net Administrator Tool list. Even if you aren't administering a server this has a lot of cool suggestions and X11 apps. Since administration is one of the most defendable uses for X11, you'll find a lot here. Be aware that it covers Windows as well. The Backup articles are very good reads for using OSX.

http://www.netadmintools.com/


KDE doesn't work too well with X11.app at the moment. At least I often have problems with KDE applications. (Others may not) The following though is basically the KDE version of VersionTracker. Some of the applications you might be able to install with Fink. So the page may just act as a "gee I ought to try that" site. However others you may have to compile on your own. Click on the "categories" button near the top of the window to get a list of all the application types.

http://apps.kde.com/


Gnome applications like Abiword or Gnumeric work very well under X11. The following is a site that lists most of the significant Gnome applications. Once again many are available via Fink. However many others aren't.

http://www.linux.org/apps/Gnome.html

[sao]

ClarkGoble,

If you search with google you will find 'many' places from where you can get X11 apps. Tons of links. And if you know how to compile by yourself, you might be successful in installing some of them.

Many Mac users, are just starting with Unix, like I did myself one year ago, some of them are complete beginners, and that's why I strongly recommend starting with Fink.

It offers a lot in one place and is simple to use (by installing binary packages with apt-get). Easy to delete if you get tired of it, wonderful support 24/7 and most important...

all Fink packages are ported not to Linux, or some other system, but they modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X ("port" it) and make it available for download as a coherent distribution.

So, all Fink ported software is geared straight for MacOS X.

And for a beginner, who doesn't know the intricacies of compiling, that's great!


Cheers...

[bluehz]

One thing I can say (even if a bit off topic) running remote apps from my Linux box on my Mac using Apples X11 is AMAZINGLY fast compared to previous X11, I was dumbfounded the first time I launched a remote app - I am used to runnig to get coffe while it loads. Not this time - appeared almost instantaneously.

I have even found I can put commands for remote applications in the Apple X11 menu using this syntax:ssh -X user@server application

e.g.
ssh -X root@linux endeavour2Note that I use ssh-agent to automatically exchange pubkeys with my linux box so I do not have to enter a login/password. I am not sure the above syntax will work in the Application menu otherwise as I see no way to request a login/password (although its entirely possible).

[sbur]

Originally posted by RacerX
Geomview? ...[snip].... Both SGI's IRIX and Sun's Solaris (and early versions of the SunOS) all had Motif in common (which I was under the impression was one of the requirements to run it on non-SGI/Sun systems).
.

Motif (or an knockoff of it) has been ported. I got it from either Don Logan's site (? - it was about a year ago) or gnu-darwin. but the libraries are all avaliable and are required for a number of things.



In general I would agree that X11 isn't usefull for the general user. I use it for very specialized apps like pymol and molden which do not have (good) aqua counterparts.

[Glanz]

If you have fink:

Galeon: THE FASTEST browser, even faster than Safari and Chimera. Galeon is a GNOME web browser based on Gecko (the Mozilla rendering engine. It's fast, it has a light interface, and it is fully standard-compliant.

Nedit aka Nirvanna (for the editing bliss it brings). NEdit is a standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) style text editor for programs and plain-text files. Users of Macintosh and MS Windows based text editors should find NEdit a familiar and comfortable environment. NEdit provides all of the standard menu, dialog, editing, and mouse support, as well as all of the standard shortcuts to which the users of modern GUI based environments are accustomed. For users of older style Unix editors, welcome to the world of mouse-based editing! Features for programmers

* State of the art syntax highlighting with built-in patterns for C, C++, Java, Ada, FORTRAN, Pascal, Yacc, Perl, Python, Tcl, Csh, Awk, HTML, LaTeX, VHDL, Verilog, and more.
* Auto-indent, programmable language-sensitive smart-indent.
* Block indentation adjustment
* Parenthesis flashing and matching
* Find lines directly from compiler error output
* Tab emulation
* Unix ctags support
* Client/Server mode for integration with software development tools.
* Very complete functionality. NEdit is the primary editor for thousands of Unix and VMS programmers
* Thorough consistency with Motif, MS Windows, and Macintosh conventions
* Designed for intensive use: keystroke efficiency, fast response time, streamlined interaction
* Unlimited undo

* 100% GUI from the ground up

* True multi-window, fully graphical design
* Mouse-based editing
* Secondary/quick action selections
* Fully integrated rectangular selection
* Interactive WYSIWYG dragable selections
* Maximum compatibility with X, Motif, and inter-client protocols, for interaction with the widest possible range of X programs and


WINDOWMAKER and (Blackbox): IMHO the best window manager, along with Blackbox. Usage Notes: Before you can use Window Maker, you must run 'wmaker.inst' to set up the preferences files for your account. That script can also create an appropriate .xinitrc file to start Window Maker as your default window manager.

To use Window Maker with GNOME, leave .xinitrc alone and instead select Window Maker in the Window Manager panel of the GNOME Control Center.

Web site: http://www.windowmaker.org/

blackbox-rootless
Alternate Window Manager, works in XDarwin's
Blackbox is yet another addition to the list of window managers for the Open Group's X Window System, Version 11 Release 6 and above. Blackbox is built with C++, sharing no common code with any other window manager (even though the graphics implementation is similar to that of Window Maker).

This version of blackbox has been patched to be more usable under rootless X. The menus, which were previously only accessible via clicking on the root window, may now be opened from the (otherwise fairly useless) toolbar at the bottom of the screen.

Web site: http://bbtools.thelinuxcommunity.org/

Maintainer: Christian Swinehart <cswinehart@users.sourceforge.net> env

[bluehz]

I would like to append this note regarding useful X11 apps:

Two useful apps I use remotely on my Linux box via Apple X11:

Kate
http://kate.kde.org/
This is sort of like the BBEdit of the Linux world. It is especially useful for editing XML files.

Endeavour2
http://wolfpack.twu.net/Endeavour2/
This reminds me of FileBuddy - only a bit more powerful. File browser, image browser, archiver.

I just checked and neither of these are available via Fink. I have no idea if they woudl actually build on OS X. Like I said - I am actually running them remotely on a Linux box.

Interesting note - I can launch most remote applications using the Applications menu with a command like this:

ssh -X user@server application_name

but for some reason this does not work with kate. If I try it with kate I get:

There was an error setting up inter-process communications for KDE. The message returned by the System was:

Authentication Rejected, reason: none of the Authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed.

Please check that the "dcopserver" program is running.

but if I do the same command in an Apple X11 terminal:

ssh -X user@server kate

then kate launches just fine.

Anyone have any ideas what might be going on here? Could this be one of those "path" anomalies that are occuring in Apple X11?

[ClarkGoble]

While I agree with Fink being ideal for newbies, installing most Unix software isn't that painful. Just unzip the .tar.gz file to its own folder. Open up the terminal and cd to that directory. (Type cd and then drag the folder to the terminal window as a shortcut)

First read any README files. Then type "make depend" (not all require this, so it may not do anything or report that there isn't a way to make depend). Type make and it will spend a few minutes compiling. If there are problems here you are likely missing something. If you have some experience you may be able to get the missing files. If you are a newbie, well I'd not bother going further.

If the "make" works (and in my experience it typically does) then type "make install". That typically copies the program the /usr/bin or other locations. In a few cases you have to copy the file yourself. For those programs I typically just create a bin directory in my home directory. I then do "sudo cp newfile ~/bin"

That's all there is to it.

To be honest with about 15 non-Fink packages I've installed, I've only run into compile problems twice. These were rather involved packages. The place things may get a little tricky is with Perl scripts that depend upon other Perl libraries. You often have to learn how to load Perl libraries. However for those cases you can often ask questions here or in one of the other Mac forums and get help. Plus, to be honest, problems like that are how you learn the most about the shell.

[sao]

ClarkGoble wrote:
To be honest with about 15 non-Fink packages I've installed, I've only run into compile problems twice.
Well done, ClarkGoble. Thanks for sharing.


Cheers...

[sao]

bsdmktemp

Utility for safely making temporary files and directories.
Mktemp is a simple utility designed to make temporary file handling in shells scripts be safe and simple. Traditionally, many shell scripts take the name of the program with the PID as a suffix and use that as a temporary filename. This kind of naming scheme is predictable and the race condition it creates is easy for an attacker to win. A safer, though still inferior approach is to make a temporary directory using the same naming scheme. While this does allow one to guarantee that a temporary file will not be subverted, it still allows a simple denial of service attack. For these reasons it is suggested that mktemp be used instead. The mktemp utility takes the given filename template and overwrites a portion of it to create a unique filename.


xtail

Watches the growth of files.
Xtail monitors one or more files, and displays all data written to a file since command invocation. It is very useful for monitoring multiple logfiles simultaneously.If an entry given on the command line is a directory, all files in that directory will be monitored, including those created after the xtail invocation. If an entry given on the command line doesn't exist, xtail will watch for it and monitor it once created. When switching files in the display, a banner showing the pathname of the file is printed.

Even though in the README file of xtail it says that it is similar in functionality to running a "tail -f filename" command, it is actually quite different._ Whereas tail will only monitor any changes appended to the end of a file, xtail actually monitors the entire file._ When xtail is invoked with the following command:
% xtail /var/log/messages
It will monitor the /var/log/messages file for any changes, this includes both new data and deletions._ xtail continuously searches through the list of files looking for any changes and reporting this information to standard output. Xtail uses two different parameters within its C looping function to determine if a file that it is monitoring has changed -

* The size of the file
* The mtime of the file

[Don Benot]

Thanks for that info ClarkGoble. I do have a question though. You said:

If the "make" works (and in my experience it typically does) then type "make install". That typically copies the program the /usr/bin or other locations. In a few cases you have to copy the file yourself. For those programs I typically just create a bin directory in my home directory. I then do "sudo cp newfile ~/bin"

Is there any danger in putting non-Fink stuff in /sw/bin ? That way, all the X11 stuff would be together.

Don

[bluehz]

Don Benot - I asked that same question a few months ago. I thought it would be nice to basically keep my system clean and install all into /sw/bin ...sort of self-contained. The answer was a resounding NO do not install into /sw/bin. It was something akin to sacralige. Not surethe exact reasoning - I mean logistically it should work fine. But for whatever reason it was recommmend against installing into /sw/bin. Perhaps others in this thread could chime in with a good reason (other than blaspheming the /sw/bin directory).

[ClarkGoble]

There really isn't a problem with putting anything anywhere. For programs that aren't just small terminal apps (i.e. pretty printers and so forth) a lot of people put them in /usr/local/bin. You could use /sw/bin however the problem with that is if Fink installs a different version. Further when I've had problems with Fink in the past, such as when I installed the latest version of Perl, I ended up having to remove all of Fink and reinstall it. Had I compiled those other programs to the Fink directory I'd have had to reinstall each of them by hand.

If you really feel uncomfortable with putting things in /usr/bin or ~/bin then simply create a directory structure like Fink does. Call it /mysw. Create a src directory to keep the .tar.gz files you downloaded, in case you need to reinstall them. (Most OSX users have 40-60gig hard drives, so the few meg this will take isn't significant and is very convenient in the long term) You thus end up with a structure like this:

/mysw/bin
/mysw/src

I personally have a second hard drive I keep backups of all my install software on. Typically I create .dmg files using Disk Copy. This is very good for me as I have stepped on CDs of original software before. (I killed a copy of Metrowerks by dropping it and rolling over it with my chair) So I already have a bunch of directories for that. I just have one called "non-Fink sw" where I keep my .tar.gz files. Once again this really is convenient. It makes it clear what version of the software you are running, so you know if you ought to upgrade. It also makes installing on other machines or reinstalling on your own much easier.


One last quick mention. One reason that it is typically so easy to install non-Fink software is that installing Fink installs most of the libraries you would ever need. Even if you aren't using many installs from Fink, consider installing the general Gnome and KDE applications. That will automatically load quite a few libraries. When you install non-Fink software the "make" command will search for those libraries and will find the ones Fink installed. Thus Fink really erases a lot of installation headaches even if you don't use Fink for much.

[sao]

Don Benot,

I wouldn't recommend to install anything that is not a Fink package in /sw. That's the official Fink advice too. I have read about many problems already from people who wanted to 're-invent' the wheel.

ClarkGoble wrote:
There really isn't a problem with putting anything anywhere.
I think that's a bold statement when you had the experience of installing 'only' 15 packages by hand.

I will give the opposite advice to a beginner, especially if they don't know what you know.


Cheers...

[ClarkGoble]

Well you did leave out my caveat about version differences with Fink stuff. Further I noted many reasons why you wouldn't want to put them in /sw.

There are excellent reasons for putting things in specific locations. However there is rarely a reason for a program having to go in a specific location. Also, while I've installed 15 non-fink programs in OSX, I've installed far more in Linux, Solaris, and BSD systems. Often I've installed them in their own location and then symlinked executables to one of the various /bin directories. Indeed many installers do this so as to keep the applications clear and easy to upgrade.

With regards to newbies, I'd suggest putting them where the installer wants. Typically that will be /usr/bin. If it doesn't put them anywhere, put them in ~/bin or /mysw/bin.

[sao]

ClarkGoble,

From what you said now, I'm sure that you had a lot of experiences. I just wanted to pass the message to keep it simple for beginners.

It could be a good idea you start a thread in Unix beginners about compiling things by hand in /usr/local.


Cheers...

[Don Benot]

Yes ClarkGoble, please do that. I'm having some problems with what is probably a simple compile right now. I wasn't sure this thread would be the place for it, even though that's kind of what we've been discussing.

Regards,
Don

[Glanz]

Originally posted by ClarkGoble

With regards to newbies, I'd suggest putting them where the installer wants. Typically that will be /usr/bin. If it doesn't put them anywhere, put them in ~/bin or /mysw/bin.

I find that most of the X11 dependant apps I install go to /usr/local..... I even opt out of /opt often to redirect to /usr/local.... This keeps interference with a non-X11 system [osx] to a minimum. Although, Unix is Unix, yes, but I like to keep non aqua/quartz stuff away from the base machine system.

[Glanz]

here are two applications that I use daily at work in my genome sequencing methodology research....... I did not install them from Fink however they may be launched from Fink via a window manager provided that the path is literal in the menu system.

http://cns.csb.yale.edu/v1.1/

Crystallography & NMR System (CNS) is the result of an international collaborative effort among several research groups. The program has been designed to provide a flexible multi-level hierachical approach for the most commonly used algorithms in macromolecular structure determination. Highlights include heavy atom searching, experimental phasing (including MAD and MIR), density modification, crystallographic refinement with maximum likelihood targets, and NMR structure calculation using NOEs, J-coupling, chemical shift, and dipolar coupling data.....

And this one....
http://www.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk/Software/EMBOSS/

EMBOSS is a new, free Open Source software analysis package specially developed for the needs of the molecular biology (e.g. EMBnet) user community. The software automatically copes with data in a variety of formats and even allows transparent retrieval of sequence data from the web. Also, as extensive libraries are provided with the package, it is a platform to allow other scientists to develop and release software in true open source spirit. EMBOSS also integrates a range of currently available packages and tools for sequence analysis into a seamless whole. EMBOSS breaks the historical trend towards commercial software packages.

The EMBOSS suite

Provides a comprehensive set of sequence analysis programs (approximately 100)
Provides a set of core software libraries (AJAX and NUCLEUS)
Integrates other publicly available packages
Encourages the use of EMBOSS in sequence analysis training.
Encourages developers elsewhere to use the EMBOSS libraries.
Supports all common Unix platforms including Linux, Digital Unix, Irix, Tru64Unix and Solaris.

Within EMBOSS you will find around 100 programs (applications). These are just some of the areas covered:

Sequence alignment
Rapid database searching with sequence patterns
Protein motif identification, including domain analysis
Nucleotide sequence pattern analysis, for example to identify CpG islands or repeats.
Codon usage analysis for small genomes
Rapid identification of sequence patterns in large scale sequence sets.
Presentation tools for publication
And much more.