Complete novice w/elementary questions

[Ben Abbott]

On Apr 21, 2008, at 8:44 PM, Gene Partlow wrote:

> Hello - -
> I am going to opt for the GNU Octave mathware package, but
> (1) I am quite incapable of downloading, compiling and installing
> it.  I will need to hire a local programmer in the Santa Cruz area
> to do this for me.  Finding a pre-built one would be ideal.
>
> And (2) I need to know if there exists older versions which would
> operate well with my older 2001 iMac, which has a 500 MHz Power
> PC G3 'engine', 256 MB SDRAM memory, and runs version
> OS X 10.3.9  (The current Octave version requires an OS X 10.4 or
> higher, I think.)  I am desperate to just get the job done by a local
> pro, so I can get back to my work, which is my real habitat.
>
> Any suggestions can help me.  You can send to my e-mail also:
>     stargene at sbcglobal.net
>
> Thanks for your time,
> Gene Partlow

Gene,

There are two excellent package management systems for Mac OSX.

They are MacPorts and Fink.

	http://www.macports.org/

	http://www.finkproject.org/

I have no experience with MacPorts, but will caution you that Fink's  
support for OSX 10.3.9 is a bit dated. You will not be able to install  
the latest version of Octave.

Installation of each is more complex than installing a pre-installed  
binary, but much simpler than compiling and installing yourself.

There are binary distributions for OSX (for example: http://octave.sourceforge.net/index.html) 
. However, I do not know if they will run on a G3 running OSX 10.3.9.

In any event, all the options available for OSX are listed at the link  
below.

	http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/download.html

Ben