How to Activate the Unstable Branch

From OS X Scientific Computing

If you need several packages from the Unstable Branch of fink, you need to edit the file /sw/etc/fink.conf and then update all of your package descriptions.

Here is a simple command that will edit the file in-line for you, and will make a backup called /sw/etc/fink.conf.bak, should you choose to revert.

sudo perl -pi.bak -e 's| stable/main | stable/main unstable/main unstable/crypto |g' /sw/etc/fink.conf

Then update with

fink selfupdate-rsync; fink scanpackages; sudo apt-get update

Be aware that next time you issue

fink update-all

there will probably be a lot of recompiling of newer versions of packages you have already installed. To prevent that, you can revert to stable after installing your packages of choice using commands such as

fink install coot

to install (for example) the coot package and its myriad dependencies in unstable, and then revert to stable by issuing

sudo cp /sw/etc/fink.conf.bak /sw/etc/fink.conf

then issue

fink index

to avoid confusing the hell out of the package manager. If you just need a few packages from unstable, you can do this sort of thing:

sudo mkdir -p /sw/fink/dists/local/main/finkinfo

to make the directory /sw/fink/dists/local/main/finkinfo if it does not already exist, and then create symbolic links, such as the following (using as an example the various ccp4 info and patch files -- the asterisk guarantees you will get them all).

sudo ln -s /sw/fink/dists/unstable/main/finkinfo/sci/ccp4* /sw/fink/dists/local/main/finkinfo/. 

then issue

fink index

followed by

fink install cpp4

(replacing ccp4 with whatever package you happen to with to install).