Links CLI Based Browser With Graphics : OS X Build

Links command line interface based browser with Graphics can only be enabled on OS X with make function. During the build process, one need to enable graphics. We wrote about Command Line Web Browsing in previous article with all the softwares we found are in usage. We mentioned in that article, that Graphical features of Links command line interface based browser demands manual installation and we will create the full guide as a separate article. Here is the article.

Links CLI Based Browser With Graphics : Basic Needs

Links is possibly one of the best CLI browser, the development part is great but the maintenance part is not modernized. We found nothing on SourceForge, GitHub. We will upload a version for easy working and development by the community. May be, many are not aware that Links exists. The name is also very pathetic to search with being too much general terminology.

What the basic things you will need are :

1. The source code (will be shown in the guide)
2. All normally accepted packages installed like we wrote for the fix after OS X 10.8 upgrade guide

Links CLI Based Browser With Graphics : The Guide

Open your Command Line Tool (either default Terminal or iTerm2). Manually download the tar ball from here :

Obviously, you will be downloading the latest version.

Or you can wget it :

Uncompress it with tar -xzvf command or manually uncompress it. Change directory to that folder (taking that you have downloaded it on $HOME) :

Run this command to enable graphics :

If you face this error :

You need libpng to compile Links in graphics mode

Install libpng first :

You will get a funny message with beer glass icon :

X11 is no longer by default installed on OS X. So, still if you run the command ./configure –enable-graphics, you’ll continue to receive configure: error: No graphics drivers found. This can be confusing to the new users. Here is support doc :

Download that DMG and install it first. Now you need to restart once. Then run this command :

Not understood ? Run ./configure –help to see what options it lets you set.  All over the web you will see the wrong copy pasted command. Previously, the location was /usr/include/X11 ; they forget to check that does not work. Google hugely loves these kind of copy pasted websites. Users will complain, fight, but can never solve it.

Now compile :

If sudo throws error, omit it. Just use make install command. Actually we change the permissions for our usage and we forget the default. We are done with Links CLI Based Browser With Graphics guide. But, by default, if you run :

That will open thee text mode only. You will need add -g flag for graphics mode :

Do not forget to delete the files from which you created it with rm command. Now we are browsing :