how to install Mnet for Mac OS X

important known bugs

The big panel -- where search results, download status, upload status, and chat are displayed -- sometimes stays blank. Clicking on the tab at the top (labelled "Search", "Downloads", "Publish", or "Chat") forces it to appear.

precompiled packages

Download the current version for Mac OS X: . When you download it, it will unpack itself into a directory named "Mnet". Start the terminal utility and execute "Mnet/Mnet.sh" on the command-line.

system requirements

Mac OS X, Python 2.3

There are more requirements if you want to have the full GUI. See "GUI" below.

installation

• If it didn't uncompress and untar automatically when you downloaded it, resulting in a directory named "Mnet", then untar it with tar xzf Mnet-0.6.2.383-STABLE-Darwin-Power_Macintosh.tar.gz
• Get a shell (e.g. by starting the "terminal" utility), and execute the Mnet/Mnet.sh script from the command-line.
• If you are using the HTML-based GUI instead of the wxWindows based GUI, open a web browser to "http://127.0.0.1:4004/"

GUI

There are two user interfaces for Mnet. The new interface is based on wxPython and provides a real application window with buttons and boxes and a menu and so forth. The GUI window appears when you launch Mnet if you have wxPython installed on your system. See the wxPython download page.

The old one is based on HTML and works in any web browser. You can access the HTML interface by opening your web browser to http://127.0.0.1:4004/ (note: that link will not work until you have downloaded, installed, and launched an Mnet node on your computer).

building from source

Click here to download the source package: .

All of the source code for Mnet is gratis and libre (LGPL). Compiling is quite straightforward -- you just run "sh mnet/hackerdocs/cvsinstall.sh" and wait (provided that you have the required software installed).

requirements for building from source

REQUIRED: C/C++ compiler, GNUmake, GNU tar, Python interpreter >= v2.1 (with development headers), zlib development headers

REQUIRED if you want a GUI: wxPython and wxWindows

REQUIRED if you want automatic detection of Ogg/Vorbis metadata: libogg and libvorbis

RECOMMENDED: we use GCC 3.3.2, gnumake 3.80, python 2.3.2, wxPython 2.4.2.4

the next version

You may want to try the next version of Mnet which is at this time (2003-11-08) only partially operational. It lacks a GUI, for example, and can only be controlled through the command-line. It is primarily of interest to hackers who want to contribute to the Mnet project or to use Mnet as a component of a larger system. See from the mnet_new/ CVS module for instructions. (You have to build it yourself from source.)