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MacPorts2.6.2

Name: MacPorts
Rating: 4.7917 (6 reviews)

21 October 2019

Install open-source software on Darwin OSes (was DarwinPorts).

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Overview

Note: The screenshot shown in this listing comes from Pallet, a separate resource available here.

MacPorts Project's main goal is to provide an easy way to install various open-source software products on the Darwin OS family (OpenDarwin, OS X, and Darwin).

What's new in MacPorts

Version 2.6.2:

Added support for zsh to the pkg installer's PATH setup code.
Allow individual ports to change prefix without disabling binary
distribution for them.
Added warning to install the Command Line Tools when using
Xcode 10 or later and headers corresponding to the current OS
version are not available.
Always try macports-gcc on ppc systems if system compilers are
blacklisted.

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26 Reviews of MacPorts

Over the years, MacPorts has evolved from being just a "nice to have" tool for command line geeks, and is now a critical part of the infrastructure of OS X. Apple, because of their fear of version 3 of the General Public License (GPL), has completely abandoned updating many of the open source components in OS X. This has affected the BSD userland the most. In some cases, they've tried replacing established tools with their own, but mostly, programs have simply been allowed to languish with no updates past those that were released under the GPLv2. That's where package managers like MacPorts come in, to keep your system from becoming a decrepit and obsolete pile of trash, due to Apple's neglect. This is a key example of why the *nix brethren and sistren among us need to maintain things ourselves, because Apple has once again thrown us under the bus.

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I'm mainly a homebrewer, but for the occasional other package, I need MacPorts, and I like it a lot. Though the weird thing is that the latest update 2.5.4 doesn't support Xcode 10 on High Sierra; to use MacPorts 2.5.4 with Xcode 10, you need to be on Mojave.

(1)

After years of using and then now struggling with Homebrew, I've finally come home with MacPorts. Markedly better, more offerings that cater to user needs and wants (much more so than just being developer-centric like 'Brew). Our team has even started contributing to MacPorts and are finding development really nice with TCL and the dev community's also less hostile.

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wintermute

19 August 2015

Version: 2.3.3

Anyone get Pallet to work with MacPorts on OS X v. 10.10.5? I keep getting an error about MacPorts_Framework. I'm a newbie to MacPorts and don't understand how to solve the issue when reading through the user wiki. Somebody posted a bunch of diff patches for download that are supposed to address the problem. How are these applied? It looks like this problem with Pallet has been around for over a year... that is pretty sad considering that adding a GUI (which Pallet does) is likely the first thing a newbie (like me) would do to make managing and viewing packages easier.

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Jazzyguy

18 October 2014

Version: 2.3.2

@wordWeaver Update: "Thanks to help form Ryan Schmidt, I was finally able to install MacPorts 2.3.1 on my Yosemite 10.10 Public Beta 1 iMac, running Xcode 6 beta 5. The problem was that I had to set the path to the Xcode beta app in the Terminal, and also install a brand new installation of MacPorts using the source tarball. In other words, if you are also running the Yosemite beta or DP, you cannot use the MacPorts 2.3.1 DMG file, or the "sudo port -v selfupdate" command in the Terminal. You must install a fresh copy of MacPorts under Yosemite using the source tarball. It will then also allow you to update your ports as well. Hope this helps someone." Please Help. How do I get The Developer Tools BETA edition you mentioned in your comment? How do i get the SDK? I am sort of a novice.Ionly want to install Pan on my copy of Yosemite and maybe Kstars if I am successful.

(0)

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WordWeaver

09 August 2014

Version: 2.3.1

Would I be correct to assume that the Yosemite public beta has broken MacPorts? I just typed "sudo port -v selfupdate" in the Terminal and the resulting error I got is as follows: Error: Current platform "darwin 14" does not match expected platform "darwin 13" Error: If you upgraded your OS, please follow the migration instructions: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration OS platform mismatch while executing "mportinit ui_options global_options global_variations" Error: /opt/local/bin/port: Failed to initialize MacPorts, OS platform mismatch I guess I am off to that migration URL to see what is going on with MacPorts.

(0)

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amaloney

26 July 2013

Version: 2.2.0

When I try to install Pallet, I get a failure. The following message appears. What am I doing wrong? ============ ---> Building webkit-gtk Error: org.macports.build for port webkit-gtk returned: command execution failed Please see the log file for port webkit-gtk for details: /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_www_webkit-gtk/webkit-gtk/main.log Error: Unable to upgrade port: 1 Error rebuilding webkit-gtk while executing "error "Error rebuilding $portname"" (procedure "revupgrade_scanandrebuild" line 382) invoked from within "revupgrade_scanandrebuild broken_port_counts $opts" (procedure "macports::revupgrade" line 5) invoked from within "macports::revupgrade $opts" (procedure "action_revupgrade" line 2) invoked from within "action_revupgrade $action $portlist $opts" (procedure "action_target" line 96) invoked from within "$action_proc $action $portlist [array get global_options]" (procedure "process_cmd" line 93) invoked from within "process_cmd $remaining_args" invoked from within "if { [llength $remaining_args] > 0 } { # If there are remaining arguments, process those as a command set exit_status [process_cmd $remaining..." (file "/opt/local/bin/port" line 4857)

(0)

Derekcurrie

24 July 2013

Version: 2.2.0

Pallet: A quick note to point out that if you would like to use a GUI for MacPorts v2.x, use Pallet. It is available here: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsGUI Do NOT bother with Porticus or PortAuthority. They no longer work properly with MacPorts v2. GUIs for MacPorts have never been perfect, but Pallet is a reasonably easy way to learn about available ports. As for installing ports, I've found using the CLI to be easier to use. And I hate CLI commands! I ended up writing the commands then dragging them out of Terminal as clippings. Whenever I need to use the commands I just drop them on Terminal, finish the commands as required, and let Terminal do the work.

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The best software available to get apps like kstars, which is a great astronomy app as well as other open source apps. It is a great addition to OSX.

(1)

Mdognrdog

27 July 2012

Version: 2.1.2

Don't construe the following as a knock on MacPorts; it isn't. MacPorts is one of a few different ports repositories for Mac OS X. It's pretty much the closest one to an "official" repository, I think. Having noted that, I had difficulty getting my MacPorts repository to the point where I could effortlessly type "port install package_name" and expect the program to Just Do It. My main need for the various ported programs and libraries was to assist in doing Ruby development, so I went with Homebrew (which does not appear to be available through MacUpdate). Homebrew does the same basic thing as MacPorts, coded entirely in Ruby. I really don't know whether the selection of Homebrew ports is as extensive as the selection of MacPorts. I do know that it's very easy for me to install and manage ports and their dependencies. So: a port repository on your OS X machine is a Good Thing. If MacPorts works great for you, excellent! If it doesn't, there are others, including (maybe limited to) the aforementioned Homebrew, and Fink.

(0)

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SickTeddyBear

27 July 2012

Version: 2.1.2

The download link is for Lion. There are different installers for Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion: https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.1.2-10.8-MountainLion.pkg https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.1.2-10.6-SnowLeopard.pkg

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For those who already have older version and want to upgrade 1) port -d selfupdate 2) port upgrade outdated 3) port install mc (use with sudo)

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SickTeddyBear

08 May 2011

Version: 1.9.2

Am I the only person here who was unaware that there is an official MacPorts GUI called Pallet? Take a look: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/MacPortsGUI

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This is an amazing piece of software, virtually any piece of free open-source software is available to you with this tool, including Gimp, Tesseract OCR, and even Wine.

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I was needing Inkscape with the textext plugin. I have installed Fink but I was having building problems. I have then tested MacPorts 1.9.1 and launched sudo port install inkscape. After a long delay Inkscape has been built with all the dependencies (there are a lot of them) and Voilà ! It worked without a hitch. Inkscape gives some warnings during the launch but it seem to work and the launch is quick. I am using OSX 10.6.4. Now I can begin to explore other OS softwares. Thanks to the MAcPorts team, very nice job!

(2)

MacPorts works GREAT for me. No problems at all. I currently use it with a 10.5.8 PPC system, and will continue using it when I upgrade to a 10.6.x Intel. MacPorts is also a lifesaver. As a simple example, I just used it to compile the latest bug-fix release of the VideoLAN media player (VLC 1.0.6), which is currently only available in source form. Without MacPorts, I would need to download and compile by hand, and who knows what would have happened. As it is, I just typed "sudo port install vlc", and MacPorts handled the rest, compiling not only VLC, but all the dependencies, and it used the right variants so that I ended up with a clickable program in my /Applications/MacPorts directory as well. Sweet. Although I use MacPorts as my primary package manager, I also use Fink, and if you configure things correctly, they can easily co-exist on the same system and not get in each other's way. All you have to do is make sure that the path to MacPorts' directories come before Fink. You do that like this in your .profile or .bash_profile: test -r /sw/bin/init.sh && . /sw/bin/init.sh export PATH="/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:${PATH}" export MANPATH="/opt/local/share/man:${MANPATH}" export INFOPATH="/opt/local/share/info:${INFOPATH}"

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As a counterpoint to the last two comments, MacPorts almost always works well if it's correctly installed. Apart from Xcode, there are no external dependencies. Once in a while a port fails to build, and then you have to take a particpatory, problem-solving approach -- this is open-source software. I've found that most problems can be resolved by looking up bug reports, reading the mailing list, or posting a query myself. MacPorts is not a point-and-click kind of thing. You have to be comfortable with UNIX or willing to learn.

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90% of everything I have tried to install, related to the X Windowing System, fails to install. I have Apple's development tools installed, too. The errors are usually "error code (1)" or "error code (0)" or " 'some-piece' failed to compile" no reason given. I get these whether I install using a GUI or the Terminal. No mention of what these codes mean. The other issue is, although it lists dependencies, it gives no clue as to where to get these or, in many cases, to which of these dependencies come with an application available through Macports.

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Nothing builds with 1.8 under Snow Leopard. Not gimp, not emacs, most of their dependencies fail. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling using instructions given on the web site. Still no luck. A varying handful of important ports are always broken at any given time, but 1.8 achieves new milestones in port breakage.

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When I try to download the MacPorts 1.8 package for Snow Leopard I get the following error: Forbidden You don't have permission to access /MacPorts/MacPorts-1.8.0-10.6-SnowLeopard.dmg on this server.

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The most important application and the most necessary on the Mac. Without this it would be impossible to get the free games, and innovative stuff like "Figlet" and kStars which BTW beats all shareware and freeware astronomy apps available including Stellarium and other apps. It was great that it is now NATIVELY ported to 10.5 and runs great!

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The package manager formerly known as DarwinPorts is the best thing out there for easy installation, compiling and management of all sorts of unix based stuff. Super app! Better than Fink, in my opinion, as it seems to have more up to date packages, in general.

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