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February 12, 2009

4

CVS on a Mac

In order to be able to work on some of our Xtext / Eclipse related build scripts, I needed to install a CVS command line client on my Mac. Now if you google for "cvs mac", you'll get a large list of result, basically telling you to get the Apple Xcode SDK. While the Xcode SDK is for free, and usually you don't even need to download it from the Apple Developer Connection's website (as you already have it on your Mac install disks as Lullabot points out), it occurred to me that installing a 1+GB space hog seems to be a bit of an overkill for getting a tiny application.

So I decided to give Fink a try. Here is what you need to do to get a CVS commandline client on your Mac:

  1. Download Fink
  2. Install Fink
  3. Copy FinkCommander to your Applications folder
  4. Start FinkCommander
  5. In the search box, type "cvs"

    Fink Commander

  6. Click on the "install binary package" button (it's the leftmost, with the blue plus sign)
  7. In the lower pane, you can now watch Fink downloading and installing the CVS package.

    Fink Commander, CVS installed

  8. Let's see if it works. Open a command line window and type "cvs":

    CVS command line

    9. Perfect!

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  • http://simon.zambrovski.org/ Simon Zambrovski

    I would with the pleasure tell you that it is easier on Windows, if it would be completely true…
    If you just need the client, it is really much easier. You just download the binary, unzip and run it.
    But if you like to run the CVS as a service (for a repository), then there are two options: CVS in Cygwin and CVS NT. In fact, there is no reason not to switch to SVN, if you have the choice. The installation of the latter is well documented for all platform in the SVN Book.

  • http://www.lunar-ocean.com Antoine Toulme

    If you have a Linux background, MacPorts is more adapted. And it has more available stuff than Fink IIRC.

  • http://www.guske.de Markus Guske

    Hi,

    it seems, that you’re using your Mac as a development plattform.
    So it is nevertheless a good idea to install the Developer Tools DVDs. In my opinion, the first step after starting a fresh Mac as a Developer, even if you are not interested in developing for the Mac itself (Cocoa,…).

    This step is also necessary, if you’re using fink source packages, instead of binary ones, GCC comes with the Developer Tools.

    You also got some other useful stuff like subversion.
    Your unix environment is more close to be complete with Dev-Tools on board.

    As Antoine said, MacPorts, seems to be the better choice for adding new unix related tools and apps.
    I also used fink back in time, but switched to MacPorts (fka DarwinPorts).
    My experience: MacPorts is better supported.

    And one of the leads is Jordan K. Hubbard, co-founder of FreeBSD and works at Apple as chief of unix division.
    I guess the MacPorts team has a close connection to Apple, if they aren’t supporting the team anyway.

    Btw. you can also get GUIs for MacPorts:
    http://porticus.alittledrop.com/ – free/donationware
    http://www.codebykevin.com/portauthority.html – costs $24,95

    I don’t know how good they are, or which one is better.
    The command line is quite handy: http://guide.macports.org/

    ~ Markus

  • http://milesparker.blogspot.com Miles Parker

    Eh, you guys need to remember KISS and YNGNI. ;) Peter stated clearly that his need was to be able to run cvs from the command-line only for the purpose of running local Eclipse based build scripts. He doesn’t care about how perfect the installer or version of CVS is, and neither do I. I’m just happy that I found his post while I was waiting for XCode to download. :) 2 minute solution instead of heading down the *nix rabbit hole, thanks!