Several little things have improved in Panther, compared to previous versions. One thing I noticed is that the Preview application has become a lot more useful. In particular, it can be used to display Postscript files. The number of other usefull OS X applications out there has increased far beyond what I can list here.
Check for example Versiontracker.com for things you may need.
file:///Volumes/ls -lG, a
color-coded directory listing appears. Another use of colors in
Terminal is the emacs editor that comes pre-installed in OS X.
This is on the CD XCode Tools that comes with Panther.
On my newest computer, the Developer Tools were not yet pre-installed
but the necessary installers already resided on the Harddisk out of
the box. I went to
/Applications/Installers/Developer Tools
and first installed Developer.mpkg. This installs, among other things,
the XCode development environment including the all-important C
compiler. When I type cc --version, I get 3.3.
Alternatively, download the packages from the Apple site: http://developer.apple.com/tools/. You have to log in (or first sign up) as a member of the ADC (Apple Developer Connection). All this is free of charge. Make sure you don't get an older version of this software!
This is the XWindows server which you need in order to run things like Xemacs/emacs etc. Download it from Apple
Once X11 is installed, you may want to compile programs
that use X11 features. The installations below may require
this. For that purpose, go back to the Folder
/Applications/Installers/Developer Tools/Packages/
and installed X11SDK.pkg.
Again, you can also download the package from the Apple site:
http://developer.apple.com/tools/.
This allows you to download all the UNIX applications you'll ever need. Get the file "Fink 0.7.0 Binary Installer" from the page http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php and install it, following the instruction on that page. There are different instructions on that page, depending on whether you are a new fink user or have used fink before upgrading to Panther. Make sure you follow the appropriate link!
If you are new to fink, it may be useful to use a graphical user interface rather than the command-line version which I am using. The GUI, called Fink Commander, is available from http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/.
One departure from the fink instructions: I actually included
"source
/sw/bin/init.csh" in my .cshrc and also in my
.tcshrc file. The default UNIX shell I am using is
tcsh; this is different from the bash shell
that is initially selected as the startup shell.
I changed this setting using the application
/Applications/Utilities/Netinfo Manager. Under
"users", look for your login name and check the list of
properties for your account. There is an item "shell",
which I modified to /bin/tcsh.
This choice of shell is mostly a matter of taste, but also of
historical compatibility with earlier versions of
OS X. In OS X before Panther, tcsh was the default. I
have switched back and forth between csh,
ksh and tcsh over the years, and I see no
reason to abandon tcsh again.
In the Terminal application, open a new window to initialize the
shell. Then start by typing the following commands:
fink list | grep system-xfree86
On my machine, this outputs the following:
i system-xfree86 2:4.3-2 [placeholder for user installed x11]
At least the first line should be there if fink is to be aware of your
existing XWindow installation.
i system-xfree86-dev 2:4.3-2 [placeholder for user installed x11 development tools]
i system-xfree86-shlibs 2:4.3-2 [placeholder for user
installed x11 shared libraries]
Now you're ready to install other software: type
fink install tetex-texmf
The sudo command is essential (it requires you to enter
your password) so that the installations are done with root
privileges.
This installs a full-featured LaTeX system.
Next come the other useful installations which depend on individual
needs. In order to get the BLAS and LAPACK libraries optimized, I now
do the following:
fink install atlas
You will be asked several questions which can be acknowledged by
simply hitting return, except when asked for the type of
processor. There, choose the appropriate one! Also, if you are
compiling the libraries from fink's unstable tree, make sure you
actually read the file it prompts you to check. This may in fact
contain important bug information.
Everything else is then automatic
(there is another dialog later on asking you to enter the number at
the top of the screen - that means the biggest part of the
compilations are done...)
Many packages in fink now use Apple's veclib library when possible, so that ATLAS may not be necessary for you.
The information about packages that can be installed is found on the
fink pages,
http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/index.php.
It is crucial to read the Documentation and FAQ in order to avoid
installation problems. I myself installed many packages, among them
xemacs-sumo and GIMP, without problems.
For more tips and tricks, look through my earlier installation notes.