Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks, Second Edition

Installing Binaries

You can download and install binaries via dselect (shown in Figure 11-3), a console-based frontend to dpkg . To use dselect, you must have superuser (or administrator) privileges, so you’ll need to run sudo dselect in the Terminal. Once dselect has started, you can use the the options shown to maintain, install, and uninstall packages.

Figure 11-3. The dselect program’s main menu

[A]ccess

Chooses the access method to use. Configures the network access method to use.

[U]pdate

Downloads the list of available packages from the Fink site. This option is equivalent to running apt-get update. Table 11-2 lists the apt-get and dpkg command-line options.

Table 11-2. Some apt-get and dpkg commands

Command	Description
apt-get update	Updates list of available packages. Do this first.
apt-get install foo	Downloads and installs package foo.
apt-get remove foo	Deletes package foo.
dpkg --list	Lists all installed packages.
dpkg --listfiles foo	Lists all the files from package foo.
dpkg --install foo	Installs package foo.
dpkg --remove foo	Deletes package foo. Leaves configuration files.
dpkg --purge foo	Deletes foo and configuration files.
dpkg -S / path/to/file	Tells you which package owns a file.

Tip

You must run [U]pdate at least once after installing Fink.

[S]elect

Requests the packages you want on your system. Displays the actual package listing, ...