--- HOW TO INSTALL LILYPOND ON MAC OS X --- --- Requirements: 1) Install X11 from Panther third cd or downloading from Apple website http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/download/ You will need an Apple ID, see next section a) and b) to know how to get them. 2) Install Apple's XCode. --- TODO: how to download and install XCode a) Go to http://connect.apple.com b) Follow the instructions to get a free online membership to Apple Developer Connection. c) Once you are logged-in, go to the Download Software section. d) Click on the Developer Tools link e) Download the Xcode Tools 1.5 - CD Image f) Burn it on a cd g) install Xcode and the X11SDK.pkg. 3) Download the software "Fink" from http://fink.sourceforge.net a) Go to the website: http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php and download the Binary installer (at this moment, January 2005, the right version for Panther is called Fink 0.7.1 Binary Installer). b) Double-click on the image to mount it c) Install the package called Fink 0.7.1 Installer.pkg d) Read the README and the manual to check and eventually modify your setup. In most cases you will find there the informations that you need. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Briefly, Fink is a software that allows you to easily install software originally developed on linux environment, to Mac OS X; this software is already modifyied (ported) in order to run on Macintosh. Be aware of the fact that some software will be used within the terminal, or in a windows environment called X11. At the beginning maybe you will feel strange both at the use of the terminal or to this slighty different window interface, but don't worry, once you will feel the quality and the usability of those softwares, you will forget for sure about those differences. If you are completely not used or even scared about linux, terminal etc., two good starting points are http://www.gnu.org, to understand why also lilypond is free software and what this means, and http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/index.ws, to understand how to use the terminal and the amazing potential hidden on it. -------------------------INSTALLING LILYPOND--------------------------------- 4) First of all, you have to choose if you want to use the terminal or FinkCommander, in order to install lilypond. >From that moment you can use Fink within the terminal, or from an Application called "FinkCommander". FinkCommander is installed by copying his folder from the Fink image to your Applications folder. Fink will install all the software in a new folder called "sw"; you can think to this folder as a parallel OS that will not interfere at all with your OS, AL CONTRARIO, it will be perfectly integrated with OS X. If, like me, you will start to enjoy the possibility to use some of those great softwares available with fink, maybe you want to move the "sw" folder to another location, for example, for disk space reason. I have found some very good instructions here: http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/fink/how.html 5) STABLE-UNSTABLE TREE Usually, when you buy a commercial software, you buy the so called "Stable" version, that means that the software has been, developed, tested, and is ready to be used. Unless you are a beta tester, you will not see all the intermediate versions but there are! In free software, because the developing is often collectiv, all the people can be involved in the developing and so that's why the "unstable" version are available. An "unstable" version has usually new funcionalities, but also bugs, etc. so, at the beginning, you won't install this version of lilypond. Fink is setted by default to do not access this tree or branch. To enable unstable, from the terminal, follow this steps: >From the finder, go to Application - Utilities - Terminal and double-click on the terminal icon. a) TYPE sudo pico /sw/etc/fink.conf and press enter b) TYPE your login password and press enter c) Move with the cursor to the line that start with the word "Trees" d) At the end of the last word, TYPE "unstable/crypto unstable/main" e) Press Ctrl+o and after Enter f) Press Ctrl+x g) type exit and press enter h) Command+q to quit the terminal While is not possible to explain all those steps in detail, I would like to point that what you have just done, is the common way to set up the preferences in a text based software: instead of go to the preference menu and click on the preferences window and sub windows, here you have just to modify a text file in wich each line is a different parameter. 6) INSTALL LILYPOND Remember to: a) Download and install X11, Apple XCode and X11SDK b) Download and install fink c) If necessary, enable unstable tree d) Be connected to internet a) Launch the Terminal b) Type "fink install lilypond" and press enter or type "fink install lilypond-unstable" if you want to use developer version and press enter. c) The installation program will ask various question, putting within parentheses the default option to choose. Just press the keystroke of the default option and press enter. After that, automatically the program "curl" start to download various packages, not only lilypond, why? Because lilypond need other software in order to run and also some libraries, but don't worry about: each software that you will install within Fink will know about the so-called dependencies (software and libraries) needed. After the download, starts the compilation stage: at the first installation on lilypond it can takes quite long time it depends on the machine. It can be one hour or more. During this step you can continue to work on your computer, even if it will be a little slower (at least on my g3 800 laptop). At the end of this stage a message within the terminal will inform you that lilypond has been succesfully installed. 7) FIRST TEST Lilypond works in that way: you write a text file with the estension .ly and you run lilypond on it, if everythink is right you will obtain a .pdf file with your music. There are various way to work to a lilypond file, but the simplest is: a) Open TextEdit b) Check uf the new file is called "untitled.txt" otherwhise go to Preferences and seslct the "text only" feature, and uncheck the options "AGGIUNGI AUTOMATICAMENTE L'ESTENSIONE TXT". This is because lilypond need text only file (usually they are with the extension .txt) but with the .ly extension. c) Write the following line: { c'4 e' g' } d) save it to the desktop with the name foo.ly e) Open the terminal and type: lilypond Desktop/foo.ly and press enter f) After the process, jump to the finder and, surprise!, you have various foo files with different extension. g) Double-click the foo.pdf file and you will see the music. That's it! Another difference between free and commercial software: in commercial software usually the support is provided by the company that produces the software, in free software this support is made by all the people that are using the software. This is done using the mailing-list system where you can send your question and the other users will help you. This way can be so fast and effective that you have just to try! But, because is a voulonteer effort, remember to follow those simple rules: a) Before to send an e-mail, try to find an answer looking inside the mailing-list-archive, maybe another user had the same problem, b) Search the Lilypond documentation and the Fink docs, c) Search with Google, d) If nothing helped you, send an e-mail to the lilypond-user mailing list! In the message, please remember to put wich machine you are using, wich is your operative system, and wich version of Lilypond you are using. To check the version, type in the terminal: "lilypond -v" and press enter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are other ways to work with lilypond much more confortable than using TextEdit, In another tutorial we will see how to set Emacs, Vim and Jedit with Lilypond. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------