How do I install Unix stuff on my mac?!?

May 20, 2015 9:26 PM

So I found this wonderful program unix program, that needs to be installed and used on my macbook (yosemite). OMG. How do you install stuff like this?!?

The problem is that:
1. I don't know how to install it
2. I don't know how to use it.
3. I have very limited experience with terminal.
4. I don't know unix.
5. I don't know what is the latest version or where I can get it.

The program is hypermail

How do I install this, and use it? I can set up all sorts of directories on my mac, and I have root privileges, but I don't know how to install it and use it.

BONUS:

6. It may need updating or something.

I'm not a developer, I don't know how to install this, but I really need to use it on my mac. Can anybody help me??!?! I will be available on this thread if I missed anything vital.


In case there is ANOTHER way to do it, I'm totally game. I heard of a program called mhonarc and I'm wondering if it would do the same thing.

posted by katventures to Technology (16 answers total)

Response by poster: I'm looking at Mhonarc, but I neither know how to install it or use it.
posted by katventures at 9:57 PM on May 20, 2015

MacPorts has hypermail in its repos. It can handle updates as well.
posted by fifthrider at 9:59 PM on May 20, 2015

I'm about to head to bed, but while you wait for more complete answers, you can go ahead and get started by downloading and installing a compiler toolchain, which is almost certainly going to be a prerequisite for this sort of stuff. Open up your terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and type:

sudo xcode-select --install

It will ask you for your password. Type it in and press return (you won't see *'s show up or anything, but I swear it's there). You should then get some popups and whatnot, at the end of which you'll have a working build toolchain. Hooray!

...now someone else needs to show up and discuss what it takes to actually compile hypermail or similar on OS X. :-)
posted by SemiSophos at 9:59 PM on May 20, 2015

The cool kids seem to be using Homebrew now, not MacPorts, for installing and managing Unix packages. Not sure why.
posted by thelonius at 10:02 PM on May 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: It will ask you for your password. Type it in and press return (you won't see *'s show up or anything, but I swear it's there). You should then get some popups and whatnot, at the end of which you'll have a working build toolchain. Hooray!

Done!
posted by katventures at 10:04 PM on May 20, 2015

The cool kids seem to be using Homebrew now, not MacPorts, for installing and managing Unix packages. Not sure why.

Homebrew distributes binary packages is why. When it works, that saves time and power. In my experience, though, brew is less reliable- their htop release, for instance, is broken so as to lack the interactive menu features.
posted by fifthrider at 10:06 PM on May 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Thelonius, Homebrew tends to work with OS X's bundled distributions of, e.g., Python, Perl, Ruby, Clang/LLVM, etc. while MacPorts and Fink tend to build their own little redundant world off in /opt/. Advantages to both, but Homebrew definitely has momentum, for better or for worse. And as fifthrider mentions, it's basically a binary package service now.

But this sadly doesn't help katventures, since Hypermail isn't packaged in Homebrew, and both MHonArc and Mailman/Pipermail were rejected for philosophical reasons.
posted by SemiSophos at 10:09 PM on May 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Fifthrider is correct. I was unable to compile Hypermail from the source, but MacPorts makes it simple to install a compatible binary.

1. Download and install the MacPorts installer for Mavericks.
2. Open Terminal (CMD + SPACEBAR and start typing "terminal" -- press enter).
3. In Terminal, type "sudo port install hypermail"
4. Type in your system password when prompted.
5. In Terminal, type "hypermail -h" to see what options are available to you on the command line.
Example:
hypermail -m myfile.mbox -d ~/Desktop/MyFolder
posted by plasticbugs at 10:50 PM on May 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Whoops! I misread. You need the Yosemite installer. Sorry about that!
posted by plasticbugs at 10:56 PM on May 20, 2015

Response by poster: 4. Type in your system password when prompted.

After that, it spit this out:
sudo: port: command not found

Sorry. Won't threadsit anymore. I appreciate all your help, especially if you can help me with what is blocking me now.
posted by katventures at 11:05 PM on May 20, 2015

Response by poster: Actually. My fault. I restarted terminal after installation was complete and it worked. Till step 5.

MyMac:~ email$ hypermail -m /Users/email/Desktop/TEST/jenny.mbox -d /Users/email/Desktop/TEST/TT
No mails to output!


What?!? Thanks for the help.
posted by katventures at 11:11 PM on May 20, 2015

Response by poster: Wait. Fixed it.

MyMac:~ email$ hypermail -m ~/Users/email/Desktop/TEST/jenny.mbox -d ~/Users/email/Desktop/TEST/TT
hypermail: Cannot open mail archive "/Users/email/Users/email/Desktop/TEST/jenny.mbox".
MyMac:~ email$

Yikes. Thanks for the help. Just wanted to leave this here for posterity. I guess its just old software.
posted by katventures at 11:13 PM on May 20, 2015

In the unix shell, "~" means your home directory (/Users/email if your username is email and you're on OS X). So "~/Users/email/Desktop" means "/Users/email/Users/email/Desktop" which isn't a directory. You either want "~/Users/Desktop/..." or "/Users/email/Desktop/..." but you don't want "~/Users/email/Desktop"
posted by zachlipton at 11:24 PM on May 20, 2015

You're still not giving the correct filename for the mailbox katventures. You probably just want ~/Desktop/TEST/jenny.mbox by the looks of things.
posted by pharm at 1:06 AM on May 21, 2015

If I'm working in the command line I often find it easier to change my working directory to that of the file I'm working on, so that I don't have to type those paths out where it's easy to make a mistake. You could do that like this, in a newly started terminal:

$ cd Desktop
$ cd TEST

after that you could just do

$ hypermail -m jenny.mbox -d TT

I actually think your first command

$ hypermail -m /Users/email/Desktop/TEST/jenny.mbox -d /Users/email/Desktop/TEST/TT

was correct because the result No mails to output! indicates that it did find the mbox file but just cannot find any mails (as opposed to the command you posted after that, which, as zachlipton and pharm said, goes to the wrong filename). Are you sure the jenny.mbox file is a valid mbox file and actually contains e-mails? How did you get the mbox file?

Don't give up yet! And don't worry about threadsitting, this is the kind of question where that is useful.
posted by blub at 3:15 AM on May 21, 2015

Hey, so sorry if this is unneeded advice, but if you are going to need to be doing command-line stuff in the future, this short crash course is pretty good.

It's maybe targeted at someone who knows a little less than you, but it will teach you how to get around.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:13 AM on May 21, 2015