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From: Jolly Roger on 6 May 2010 09:48
In article <slrnhu4i0b.ruc.g.kreme(a)ibook-g4.local>,
Lewis <g.kreme(a)gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

> In message <4be20b1d$0$5231$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>
> JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot(a)vaxination.ca> wrote:
> > If I know that Macports always installs stuff in its own directories and
> > won't affect other stuff, I can accept it. But when I saw it download
> > openSSL, I was worried that it would screw the openssl that comes with OS-X.
>
> MacPorts installs everything in /opt/local/ and does not trample on
> anything.

But it does install separate copies of software that may already exist
on the system, and that software may not be the same version, and will
not use the same configuration, as the software already on the system.

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
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JR
From: Jolly Roger on 6 May 2010 09:49
In article <slrnhu4gvm.ruc.g.kreme(a)ibook-g4.local>,
Lewis <g.kreme(a)gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

> In message <vilain-573736.23191704052010(a)news.individual.net>
> Michael Vilain <vilain(a)NOspamcop.net> wrote:
> > I used Fink in 10.4 and found that for the packages I was interested
> > there were up to 100+ dependencies. I tried downloading, configuring,
> > and compiling something like ImageMagick. Ugh. After 2 frigging days I
> > was no where close to getting a working configuration. I'm used to
> > downloading, configuring and compiling the GNU and other stuff but that
> > many dependencies was a waste of my time. MacPorts downloaded and
> > compiled a working version in a couple hours.
>
> Yep, ImageMagick is a great example as it has a massive list of
> dependencies.

Not the last time I looked. There were around four dependencies!

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR
From: Tom Stiller on 6 May 2010 10:04
In article <jollyroger-F7AE8A.08483706052010(a)news.individual.net>,
Jolly Roger <jollyroger(a)pobox.com> wrote:

> In article <slrnhu4i0b.ruc.g.kreme(a)ibook-g4.local>,
> Lewis <g.kreme(a)gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>
> > In message <4be20b1d$0$5231$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>
> > JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot(a)vaxination.ca> wrote:
> > > If I know that Macports always installs stuff in its own directories and
> > > won't affect other stuff, I can accept it. But when I saw it download
> > > openSSL, I was worried that it would screw the openssl that comes with
> > > OS-X.
> >
> > MacPorts installs everything in /opt/local/ and does not trample on
> > anything.
>
> But it does install separate copies of software that may already exist
> on the system, and that software may not be the same version, and will
> not use the same configuration, as the software already on the system.

And your path environmental variable setting may not always return the
version you want.

--
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3 7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF
From: Ian Gregory on 6 May 2010 12:29
On 2010-05-06, Jolly Roger <jollyroger(a)pobox.com> wrote:
> In article <slrnhu4i0b.ruc.g.kreme(a)ibook-g4.local>,
> Lewis <g.kreme(a)gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>>
>> MacPorts installs everything in /opt/local/ and does not trample on
>> anything.
>
> But it does install separate copies of software that may already exist
> on the system, and that software may not be the same version, and will
> not use the same configuration, as the software already on the system.

This is true but not necessarily a bad thing. In general what gets
duplicated are libraries which you don't use directly. They are only
used by utilities. Native utilities continue to use the native libraries
while MacPorts utilities use the MacPorts ones, as they were built to
do. That has never been a problem for me and I can't see how it would
be.

Although I can't think of an example, there are probably also ports that
install dependencies which include utilities for which native versions
already exist. That may cause some confusion because which one you get
will depend on where /opt/local is in your $PATH. Again it has not
caused me any problems but it is something you need to be aware of.

Anyway, when I was manually building and installing software on Solaris
there were cases where the build required a different version of
something that already existed in /usr/bin and there was no avoiding
having a second copy in /usr/local/bin (replacing the /usr/bin version
is not a viable option because it may have unforeseen consequences and
get overwritten anyway when you update your system). If you have to have
a duplicate of something in /usr/bin then it may as well be in
/opt/local/bin as /usr/local/bin.

So in summary, yes duplication occurs, but it generally makes things
less confusing not more, and it is not unique to automated porting
systems like MacPorts. Once you understand the rationale for the way
MacPorts works the duplication makes sense, and if you are aware of it
is not generally a problem. If it is a problem at all then it is
certainly a minor one compared to the problems associated with building
and maintaining software manually. That is presumably why people with
lots of experience doing it manually end up volunteering to be port
maintainers with MacPorts - so that others don't have to go through the
same pain they did.

Ian

--
Ian Gregory
http://www.zenatode.org.uk/
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