Top 7 Open Source Mac Applications Through Fink

My first article at Apple Matters was about the power of Fink, the open source software that makes it easy to download and install open source Unix-ey software that was originally built for other platforms. Fink is an interface for easy installation, but Fink is also a project that shepherds many open source projects from non-Mac compliance to make them play nice with Macintosh’s Unix flavor. Here are a few of my favorite applications available through Fink:

(If you want to know what Fink is, need help with installing Fink or getting started with it, check out my earlier article on the subject or the Fink web site.)

Gnucash
I started using Gnucash some time in 2005 and it is one of the very few applications that I actually could not live without. Two years ago, I had just gotten out of graduate school and suddenly had a salary, but no idea how to manage it. Fast forward to today and I now know where every dollar of mine goes (and comes from) and am aware of every one of my spending patterns, thanks to Gnucash.

Of course, there are other alternatives for managing financial accounts, but the big things Gnucash has going for it are that it is free and works on multiple operating systems. This meant that I could try all its features without spending money and I have no fear of all of my data being lost because I change computers or software. Some day I will write a full article on Gnucash, but until then, here is a summary: it can do most of the things a full blown money management software can do, including getting stock and account information online from most financial institutions. The version in Fink is still 1.8, which is not that good at budgeting and has some other quirks but 2.0 is already available for Linux and should be ported to the Macintosh soon.

Imagemagick
Even if you have never used the command-line interface, Imagemagick one application that you should use if you play with images. Say you have a 640x480 size image in JPEG format that you need in 270x220 in PNG format. Normally, you would fire up your favorite image editing software, open the JPEG, click Resize and apply the settings, click Export and save it as a PNG.

With Imagemagick, you just fire up Apple’s Terminal.app and type ‘convert test.jpg -size 220x270 test.png’. That’s it. Similarly, you can blur, crop, flip, join, overlap, animate, and so much more with other simple, easy to remember commands. This one is a no-brainer.

Emacs
I write all of these articles in Emacs. I write all of my code in Emacs. I type 90% of every non-email text that I type in to Emacs. The only time I use a word processor is when I have been sent a document in a Word/other format or if I really need the text to be formatted for public consumption.

Emacs is extremely powerful, but has a slightly steep learning curve. Once you master a few key shortcuts, you will feel uneasy using anything else. You will dread having to move your hand to the mouse to do simple things, unless of course you are already a Vi user and are hence impossible to convince!

MySQL
Some may wonder why you would need MySQL on a desktop machine. I have two reasons: I develop web sites that I can test locally with MySQL and I actually use it as a backend for the Apache web server that Macintosh already comes with. I have a personal blog (using Word) on my Mac that only I have access to for my notes for work and I hope to use it for cataloging a lot of other information on my computer. This could be one of those things that you do not use directly, but would be required as a back-end for other applcications (like my notes-blog).

Wireshark
Sometimes, even for personal use, I like to see what kind of packets my computer is putting out on the internet. Some applications may send stuff out surreptitiously and you may just want to keep an eye on others. In either case (and in many others), Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) can tell you a lot.

fortune
If you use the command-line interface of your Mac at all, you should have fortune. It will spit out a little witty saying, quote, joke, fact or something that will put a smile on your face or make you think. You can have it be called from your login script (/Users/yourusername/.login) so that you see a new ‘fortune’ every time you open a terminal window.

Programming stuff
Of course, there is a lot of other programming-related stuff that I use Fink for but I suppose that if you are in to that kind of stuff, you already use Fink (or something like it) quite actively. If you are just getting your hands dirty with programming, the Macintosh actually comes pre-installed with quite a few tools and a lot more are available for free from the Apple Developers web site.