LINA 0.95 supports Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger, and 10.5, Leopard, on the Intel architecture. We have dropped support for the PPC architecture temporarily but expect to support PPC again soon. Note that when we do, we do not expect to achieve the performance on PPC that we do on Intel.

The pre-requisites for installing LINA on a Mac are an internet connection, approximately 1 GB of disk space and Administrator privileges on the system where you install LINA. You will be asked to provide an Admin username/password during installation and to allow LINA to open ports if your firewall is active. Disc space for LINAfied applications will be in addition to the 1 GB needed by LINA Runtime.

If this is the first LINA installation on your system you can proceed. If you have a previous installation of LINA it must be removed before you can proceed. See "Uninstalling LINA" for complete removal instructions.

Quick instructions for removing LINA on a Mac: Terminate any LINA processes by opening the Terminal application, cd to the /usr/lina directory and enter "./lina -t". Then cd to the /usr directory and enter "sudo rm -rf /lina" to remove the lina directory. Then cd to the /opt directory and enter the same command, "sudo rm -rf /lina" to remove application components. Delete the "lina.pkg" file in the boot-drive/Library/Receipts folder and you should now be able to install a fresh copy of LINA.

Please note that when you reinstall LINA you also need to reinstall any applications.

Open the zipped DMG file that you downloaded by double-clicking on it if your browser has not opened it already. Once the DMG file is available double-click on it and it will usually show up as a mounted installation disk on the Desktop.

Open this LINA disk by double-clicking on it and open the LINA.pkg file by double-clicking on it. It will ask to run a program to determine if the LINA software can be installed. Please say “yes” and Allow it to proceed by clicking the “Continue” button. Click through the resulting install screens. Choosing the default responses works fine and has been thoroughly tested.

The installation process may appear to freeze during various phases of the procedure. We will address the accuracy of the progress bars in the next release. The duration of the installation process varies with the speed, memory availability and internet connection speed of your system. On a higher-end system with a decent ethernet connection the LINA installation process takes less than five minutes.

Here we will walk through the process of installing LINA on Mac OS X. It is basically the same on Leopard and Tiger. Thank you for helping us test this version of LINA -- your assistance and feedback is always appreciated!

To begin, uncompress the zipped DMG that you downloaded by double-clicking on it. Then mount it by double-clicking on the result, and open the dmg by double-clicking on the opened image. You should then see the following:


 Double-click on LINA.pkg and a message will pop up:

Click "Continue" and the installer Welcome page will appear:


 Click "Continue" to go to the license page.

Click "Continue" and "Accept" the license to select the destination of the install.

The Installation Type page will then appear. Click "Install" or "Upgrade" to start the install. Note that if you have a previous copy of LINA installed you must remove it first. See "Uninstalling LINA" for directions. At this point you should see this window:

Partway through the process a Security dialog box may pop up and ask you if the program, VBoxHeadless should be allowed to accept incoming connections. Answer "Allow" to all four of these requests. This opens ports 3000 through 3003. On Leopard, you can rescind this permission in System Preferences: Security: Firewall. Just select the VBoxHeadless entry and click the "-" button at the bottom. You will also get 2 or 3 similar requests for the sshd process depending on your security settings. Allow all of these, too.

The installer may appear to freeze during various steps of the process. We will address the accuracy of the progress bars in the next release. The duration of the installation process varies with the speed, memory availability and internet connection speed of your system.

LINA is now installed. Click "Finish" to complete the process.

Once LINA is installed, you are ready to install a LINA application on your Mac.