[Click here for a large version of the image]
IMPORTANT NOV 14 UPDATE: The Mac development community appears to have lost a key member. Christoph Pfisterer, the lead developer on the Fink project, has given up. He lists the causes in his resignation letter, which I strongly encourage all of you to read. In particular, follow the links at the end of the letter for some excellent examples of how not to work with the Open Source development community. If you're interested in Fink at all, please take a moment and send a letter of thanks to Christoph for all his efforts. His contributions cannot be overstated, and he will be missed.
NOV 6 UPDATE: XDarwin 1.0.4.1 is now available from xdarwin.org. It addresses a number of bugs; see the comments for my posting with the full list of fixes.
UPDATE: Version 1.1 has been posted with a couple of typo corrections and a new expanded section on the methods of installing packages using Fink.
Although there have been a number of threads here on the installation and use of XFree86 (an open-source version of the X Window System) on OS X, I hadn't had much luck getting it installed on my system. Then I found Fink, an amazing package installer for OS X. With Fink, literally hundreds of pre-compiled UNIX and X Window applications (including XFree86) are as easy to install as typing a sentence. So I installed XFree86 (in two separate wasy), Fink, WindowMaker (a window manager based on Next's OpenSTEP), and GIMP (a complex image manipulation program that rivals Photoshop in its complexity).
Although Fink makes this all quite trivial, I still stumbled a few times, given my relative lack of experience with UNIX and total lack of experience with XFree86. So I decided to write up a simple guide on the installation of these packages on OS X. The result is the first of an occasional (whenever I get the urge and time!) series of "Solution Guides", which will explain exactly how to get certain things done on OS X.
This particular guide covers XFree86, Fink, WindowMaker and the GIMP. It is designed for XFree86 novices (like myself!), and does not go into the much detail on how to use what's been installed. It simply relates the steps I used to get each piece running. If you're an advanced user, there's probably nothing there you haven't seen before. So if you'd like to get the above programs running on OS X, take a look at the Mac OS X Hints Solution Guide #1. As with anything like this, what you do to your machine is your responsibility, so make sure you have a backup before you start!
All comments and technical corrections are welcomed, but I cannot possibly respond to all the individual questions that may arise. Feel free to post them here as questions in the comments area, however, and someone will more than likely respond.

