Fink

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This article is about the open source project. For other uses, see Fink (disambiguation).

Fink
Screenshot of Fink running in Terminal
Latest release	binary distribution 0.8.1 / June 15, 2006
Preview release	source distribution 0.28.1 / March 3, 2008
Written in	Perl
OS	Mac OS X
Development status	Active
Genre	Package Management
License	GNU General Public License
Website	finkproject.org

Please help improve this New sections dealing with Binary Distribution and community driven efforts such as the wiki/FDN and main Fink web-site are needed by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (March 2008)

In computing, the Fink project is an effort to port Unix programs to Mac OS X. Fink uses dpkg and APT (Debian's package management system), as well as its own frontend program, fink (which is implemented as a set of Perl modules).

1 Implementation
2 History
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Implementation

Fink features a binary distribution for quick and easy installation, as well as a source distribution for users preferring more flexibility. In addition to command-line tools for handling packages, FinkCommander provides a GUI. The user can configure Fink to utilize the stable or unstable tree for packages. The unstable tree typically has newer releases, but has not stood the test of time.

Fink stores all its data in a hierarchy rooted at its own directory, "/sw" by default, rather than as part of the base system or under "/usr/local" as specified in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. In most cases, to remove fink all that is required is the deletion of the "/sw" directory. This directory organization greatly simplifies troubleshooting, increases reliability for systems with many packages installed, and reduces conflicts with other package system including the default Mac OS X installed packages. Fink can be used to install newer versions of packages installed by Mac OS X or to install packages not included in Mac OS X.

Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

[edit] History

The Fink project was started in December 2000 by German hacker Christoph Pfisterer. The name "Fink" is German for finch and is related to the Darwin operating system (that lies at the core of Mac OS X), through Charles Darwin's study of diversity among finches. Christoph Pfisterer left the project^[1] out of frustration in November of 2001 since then several people have stepped in and picked up support for Fink and as of March 2008, the project is managed by 6 administrators, 89 developers, and a very active community.
The Fink community released support for Mac OS X v10.4 on 18 Feb. 2006 and for Mac OS X Leopard on 26 October 2007, the same day Apple released Leopard.