---
title: "Getting gEDA running on OS X"
description: "In an attempt to find a free set of schematic and PCB tools for hobby work, I looked back at (http://www.gpleda.org). The last time I used it was when the project first…"
canonical: "https://www.baldengineer.com/getting-geda-running-on-os-x.html"
author: "James Lewis"
date: "2009-03-23T22:38:43Z"
lastmod: "2015-03-24T15:28:57Z"
categories: ["around-the-web","projects"]
tags: ["fink","geda","pcb","schematic","x11"]
---

# Getting gEDA running on OS X


[![Quick schematic in gschem running on OS X.](/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/picture-1-300x247.png)](/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/picture-1-300x247.png)

Quick schematic in gschem running on OS X.


In an attempt to find a free set of schematic and PCB tools for hobby work, I looked back at [gEDA](http://www.gpleda.org). The last time I used it was when the project first started, years and years ago. I was happy to see that OS X had a set of [fink packages for the gEDA suite](http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/geda-bundle "fink instructions for gEDA"). After figuring out how to get X11 in Leopard (since I didn't include it when I installed 10.5) and install fink, getting gEDA going was a snap.  The user jluciani in the [Arduino forums](http://www.arduino.cc/ "Arduino Forums") has provided [some free pcb footprints](http://www.luciani.org/geda/pcb/pcb-footprint-list.html "gEDA PCB Footprints") he has used from previous projects.

Couple of issues:

1. [fink](http://www.finkproject.org/ "fink project homepage") must be installed as admin / root.
1. [Xquartz](http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/ "XQuartz") is a OS X implementation of X.org.
1. The binary packages for gEDA did not seem to install correctly.