mdk mit Homebrew, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix installieren

Projektlinks

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream-Dokumentation
• Paketmanager-Seite

Befehle und Aliase

• gmixvm
• mixasm
• mixguile
• mixvm

Projektgeschichte

The GNU MDK manual identifies the documented package as version 1.3.0 from October 2020 and states that the manual covers utilities for Donald Knuth's MIX computer and MIXAL. The manual copyright years begin in 2000, showing the package's long-running place in the GNU software collection.

The GNU homepage presents MDK as a GNU project with news, documentation, installation, screenshots, downloads, and Savannah hosting. Homebrew tracked stable version 1.3.1 in 2026, while the input facts list packages across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora/DNF, MacPorts, and Nix.

Adoptionsgeschichte

MDK's audience is specialized: readers of The Art of Computer Programming, emulator enthusiasts, GNU users, and people studying assembly-language architecture through Knuth's MIX model. Its adoption is therefore broader in distribution coverage than in everyday command-line visibility.

Its continued presence in general-purpose package managers matters because MIX and MIXAL are educational and historical tools. Packaging MDK keeps examples from Knuth's literature runnable on modern Unix-like systems without each user building the GNU source tree manually.

Wie es verwendet wird

The package provides `mixasm` for assembling MIXAL, `mixvm` for simulating the MIX computer, `gmixvm` as a GTK virtual machine, and `mixguile` for Scheme/Guile interaction. The manual includes installation, a MIX and MIXAL tutorial, getting started material, command reference, and Emacs support.

There is no credential flow. Configuration in the manual is runtime-oriented simulator configuration and build/install flags, not a documented per-user config file location suitable for this schema.

Warum Paket-Nerds sich dafür interessieren

GNU MDK is package-nerd significant because it is a compact bridge between classic computer-science literature and modern package managers. It lets a formula, Debian package, or Nix derivation install an executable environment for MIXAL programs.

It also illustrates why old educational tools remain packaged: not because they are high-volume infrastructure, but because they preserve reproducible access to an important computing model.

Zeitleiste

• 2000: GNU MDK manual copyright period begins.
• 2020: Manual documents GNU MDK version 1.3.0.
• 2026: Homebrew formula tracks stable version 1.3.1.

Related projects

• MDK is directly related to Donald Knuth's MIX and MIXAL from The Art of Computer Programming.
• Within GNU packaging, it is hosted through GNU/Savannah and depends on familiar GNU-adjacent components such as Guile, readline, GTK, flex, and the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector in Homebrew.

Quellen

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/mdk
• https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/mdk.git
• https://www.gnu.org/software/mdk/manual
• https://www.gnu.org/software/mdk/mdk.html
• source_facts.package-manager