GTK

Installation

Installing GTK is both a pain and a mess. I don't understand the logic of the GTK developers at all. It makes a bunch of weird, non-standard directories, and clutters your home directory with a bunch of crap.

I think the reason for doing this is, they want you to treat GTK like some kind of development environment. This is annoying and stupid, because I'm not developing in GTK. Just treat it like any other library, GTK people, I want a standard installation process, and I don't want a bunch of clutter everywhere.

I had to install it to use Wireshark, so I just had to deal. I started by going here:

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/

Then I downloaded a build script called gtk-osx-build-setup.sh from the Downloads page here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtk-osx/files/GTK-OSX%20Build/gtk-osx-build-setup.sh/download

Then I read through the prerequisites page, which is important to do BEFORE installing:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gtk-osx/wiki/Build#Prerequisites

One very important item to note is that Fink and MacPorts cause major conflicts that will make GTK fail. I fixed this by removing all traces of Fink from my $PATH, then logging out and logging back in.

For all you impatient people:

sh gtk-osx-build-setup.sh

~/.local/bin/jhbuild bootstrap

~/.local/bin/jhbuild build meta-gtk-osx-bootstrap

~/.local/bin/jhbuild build meta-gtk-osx-core

Again, this downloads and installs a bunch of crap all over the place and makes a mess in your hard drive. Thanks for the design fail, GTK developers.

Scratch That

I ended up trashing everything GTK created and installing a binary version of Wireshark. The installation procedure for GTK on Mac OS X is a complete disaster.