I don't believe that hobbyist segment is that large. I suspect most users approach from Classic or from UNIX, where the two approaches I described would fit. For those that do fit the hobbyist category - take the gloves off and dig in that's the best way to learn it.
BTW I didn't believe your response was disjointed or confrontational. In fact it invoked an almost immediate "ah-ha", as I recognized something I hadn't considered. Finally I agree with some other's comments. Package management will have to come from Apple. If they are to succeed in bringing UNIX to the desktop, they must. I already believe they've come closer than ANY other OS. A double-click installer, that can get UNIX SW installed correctly by simply providing a password for a user with admin rights is a beautiful thing. Daniel Stillwaggon wrote: You are forgetting about hobbyist users who may want to download stuff and tinker with it. Fink provides a middle ground where users can download software easily and in minimal steps. They don't need to hunt for stuff and deal with libraries and dependencies, but can still get to it to play around. Sorry if this sounds disjointed or confrontational, that was not my intent (though my head-cold seems to be interfering with my ability to write coherently). I only wanted to point out that software installation at the command-line level (much like advanced Perl), is not an easy thing and there is really no reason to pretend that it is/can/should be easy.
