Fink or Darwinports? Please advice...

Question

I know both have ports from the Unix world, but which is more friendlier for a new user like me? I recently tried out Fink and installed KDE from source, but I wonder if Darwinports have ports that better suit my needs (pdf manipulation, scientific research softwares for experimental works)?
I'd be happy to learn, but it's kinda resource limited here... :'(
Many thanx!
p/s: Is it alright to put my e-mail address on this post? I'd prefer long replies to go straight to my mailbox.

Answer 1

/usr/local/bin is NOT in the default $PATH on OS X
out of the box.
Hmm, I better look into why it is in $PATH for every
new user I create then.
"/sw/dist/main/whatever/longpath/local" just tells me
you have no idea what you are talking about. Fink
Fair enough. I tried fink, removed it, and some time
afterwards the dist/main tree got created again. Not
sure why or how, just assumed [yesyes, make a censored-word out of you and me] that's where a binary installed itself
to. Doing a find now, turns out the dir is empty. Go
figure.
/opt. They do it for exactly the same reason.
Yup. I take issue with adding yet another dir tree
to the UNIX root when there are so many available.
/opt makes sense, it uses an already common.. bah,
forget it.
It isn't fine to spread uninformed disinformation.
OK, I made a bad joke about the path. Apologies if you're
emotionally involved with fink.
As for frameworks, the canonical location for their
installation is /Library/Frameworks.
Yup, that is pretty standard.
package to do just that.) The whole point of
frameworks, though, is that you DON'T have to install
header files, executables, and libraries all over the
place. They are supposed to be self-contained, and
Well, yes... until you start compiling source code
based on autoconf or something. Then it's either
-L -I into the Framework dirs, or maintain
symlinks into a standard location for the benefit
of UNIX build systems. I use /usr/local as that is
a fairly standard location for site-specific
installations.
It's funny you mention python; that is what started
me on the road away from fink and darwinports. Many
of my projects require 2.4, which apple did not see
fit to ship in 10.4. Tried fink, darwin ports, and
MacPython versions, and continuously ran into trouble
trying to get basic python modules installed.
Set up a framework dir, symlinked from /usr/local into
the framework lib/include/bin dirs, got a bunch of
modules [pyqt, bicycle repair man, psyco, psyco-pg,
and so forth] running that I couldn't get to work
using fink/darwinports/macpython. Worked for me.
Anyways, back on topic. I prefer opendarwin to
fink, based partly on its path and partly on its
similarity to FreeBSD ports [don't get me wrong, I
like Debian's apt, but in this case I want
something like Ports].
I feel there is a caveat to choosing either,
specifically that sooner or later you are going
to need to build your own packages. This may be
inappropriate to mention to beginners, as my
needs are different from the average OS X user.
Ah well.