How to get Vulture for Nethack on my Mac

February 10, 2007 1:04 PM

Is there a viable way to install a playable version of Vultures for Nethack on my Mac?

I've looked everywhere, and the install packages are all duds. I don't know how to compile myself, but really want this (the GUI that comes with nethack is so small it hurt my eyes, and I do want graphics). I would be willing to learn how to compile myself if I had some assurance that it DOES work if done correctly. (of course if someone has made a download-and-play version that works, I would prefer that.) Thanks!

posted by LizardOfDoom to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

It's hard to answer that without a link to the software you are trying to compile. My google search turns up several possible links. Which one specifically are you interested in?
posted by chairface at 1:36 PM on February 10, 2007

I assume you mean here . Since it has a unix port and the mac is a unix box, I don't see why you couldn't compile it and go. It'll probably need to run under X11 but that's not a big hurdle. I'll see if I can build a mac binary this weekend.
posted by chairface at 1:39 PM on February 10, 2007

Response by poster: Yes, that's the one. I appreciate the help...
posted by LizardOfDoom at 1:54 PM on February 10, 2007

What version have you tried? I downloaded a 27 meg binary (no installer involved) last summer, vultures-2.1.0-eye_macosx-1.dmg. It takes a couple of minutes to load on my 1.67 GHz G4 with a gig of RAM.
posted by kimota at 3:52 PM on February 10, 2007

Response by poster: I tried that one kimota, but when i run it, it asks me to type in my name, and when i do it closes itself. That's it, no explanation. I have a iBook G4 running 10.4.8. Perhaps there's a patch somewhere?
posted by LizardOfDoom at 4:17 PM on February 10, 2007

Are you familiar with using Console.app? You might want to run through the Console log and maybe browse through the various "Open Quickly" logs to see if there's any reference to Vulture's Eye errors. (I see when I tried to run it from the disk image that it honked out because it couldn't write to the 'scoreboard' file within the application package.) Also, run the Disk Utility to check for any mangled permissions. It might be freaking out on that. Good luck!
posted by kimota at 4:28 PM on February 10, 2007

I'm working on a X build. It requires a few libraries, in particular, SDL. I'd try to install that before running the version that kimota found. It also requires libpng if you still can't get it working.

The X build I'm doing will require fink to get SDL and libpng (if I get it working).
posted by chairface at 5:42 PM on February 10, 2007

Build successful. You can build it under fink and it'll build a native app, no X11 needed. You'll need to install SDL and various subcomponents (sdl-image, sdl-mixer, sdl-ttf, possibly others) as well as libpng. You'll also need to modify the GNUmakefile in "vultures" so it knows where to find the fink include directory and the fink libraries.

If this is all beyond you and you can't get the above .dmg working, drop me a line at yahoo.com, email address fishbolt and I can send you my binary. You'll definitely need fink and the appropriate shared libraries installed in that case though.
posted by chairface at 8:13 PM on February 10, 2007

Response by poster: Hey chairface,
I sent you an email @ yahoo. Thanks for working on this!
posted by LizardOfDoom at 7:56 AM on February 12, 2007