http://www.osnews.com/story/18278/MacPorts_1_5_Released Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:01:54 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?256019 http://osnews.com/thread?256019 There is nothing in the summary or the linked web-page that says what the MacPorts software is for. They really need a "About this program" section on their web-page. Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (C_Forq) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256037 http://osnews.com/thread?256037 "MacPorts, formerly called DarwinPorts,[1] is a free/open source software project to simplify installation of other free/open source software on the Mac OS X and Darwin operating systems. Similar to Fink and the BSDs' ports collections, DarwinPorts was started in 2002 as part of the OpenDarwin project, with the involvement of a number of Apple Computer employees including Landon Fuller, Kevin Van Vechten, and Jordan Hubbard.

It allows the installation of a number of packages by simply entering the command port install packagename in the Terminal, which will then download, compile and install the requested software, while also installing any required dependencies automatically."

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacPorts Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ThawkTH) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256077 http://osnews.com/thread?256077 C_Forq: I'm glad I'm not the only one that was confused ;0)

pac Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pacmania1982) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256095 http://osnews.com/thread?256095 The creator of the port file should have already built and tested a binary; why can't they just upload that? Why should a thousand people compile the same software? Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Wes Felter) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256105 http://osnews.com/thread?256105 users have become to spoiled. Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (poundsmack) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256107 http://osnews.com/thread?256107 "A major achievement in this release is the completion of code and documentation changes to reflect the transition in project name from DarwinPorts to MacPorts."

The major achievement is a NAME CHANGE.

Underwhelming. Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BigJimSlade) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256142 http://osnews.com/thread?256142 If MacPorts is similar to BSD ports, it's not one application, it's a huge amount of applications, provided in source form. It is one of the great things about the BSDs. it's really no different then installing binary files, just takes a little longer.

You just type cd into the ports directory and type:
make install

and then go get a coffee. Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256151 http://osnews.com/thread?256151 Simple enough: Ports are not packages ... They're compiled along with dependencies during installation, unlike packages which are what you ask for, binaries targeted at a certain platform.

The advantage of ports over packages are obvious in terms of possible use of compiler flags for optimizations that might be regarded non standard, or even the possibility of compiling the port other options than intended from the port maintainer - something that's not possible with packages.

Of course the wish for packages is legit - but out of scope for the ports people as such.Edited 2007-07-17 22:40 Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (s_groening) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256176 http://osnews.com/thread?256176 The advantage of ports over packages are obvious in terms of possible use of compiler flags for optimizations that might be regarded non standard, or even the possibility of compiling the port other options than intended from the port maintainer - something that's not possible with packages.

If I wanted Gentoo, I'd use Gentoo.

Of course the wish for packages is legit - but out of scope for the ports people as such.

So I wonder why we have two ports projects (MacPorts and Fink) and no binary package projects (that I know of). Wed, 18 Jul 2007 02:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Wes Felter) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256185 http://osnews.com/thread?256185 macports suppose to have binaries, but I have no idea how to get them to work.
Also, I like fink better, but the packages are older than macports.

So macports wins. Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (IronWolve) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256200 http://osnews.com/thread?256200 Fink can be so damn verbose by default and it also struggles to resolve dependencies at times. Wed, 18 Jul 2007 06:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (evangs) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256219 http://osnews.com/thread?256219 (From the website)
'Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management. You can choose whether you want to download precompiled binary packages or build everything from source.'

That ought to answer your prayers Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (s_groening) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?256225 http://osnews.com/thread?256225 too Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Spellcheck) Comments