[Ifeffit] Getting started in OS X...

Scott Calvin scalvin at anvil.nrl.navy.mil
Wed May 28 09:53:03 CDT 2003


Hi again,

OK, I've reached a conclusion. For someone not currently using the 
open source UNIX tools and the like on the Mac, the project of 
getting Artemis, Athena, and IFEFFIT up and running is immense, 
because it means getting a large amount of additional infrastructure 
in place. Consider: Fink is required. Once Fink is installed, the 
x-free87-base package is required. That package, in turn, requires 
downloading 12 separate files (one-by-one, as far as I can tell). And 
that's just one part of a part of what is required (g77, pgplot, 
perl...). My estimate is that, with my lack of experience, it would 
take me a week full-time to get all this stuff working right. That's 
not a problem, of course, for people who already do development on 
the Mac and have most of this stuff set up anyway, or at least find 
uses for it other than getting the EXAFS packages to run. But it's 
too much of a time investment for me, and I suspect that the same is 
true for a lot of others in the field.

So I'm going to scrounge a pc from somewhere, transfer my data files 
from the Mac, and download the executable there.

If at some point an executable appears for the Mac, I will thank the 
authors profusely...I realize that no one is getting paid to work on 
this!

--Scott Calvin
Naval Research Lab
Code 6344


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