“The MacPorts team is pleased to announce the release of MacPorts v1.5. 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. This results in a slightly modified installation layout. In addition to that, there are a sizable number of bug fixes and feature enhancements. Please see the release notes for more details. Mac OS X v10.3 and 10.4 downloads are available.”
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.
“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
C_Forq: I’m glad I’m not the only one that was confused ;0)
pac
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?
users have become to spoiled.
too
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.
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
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).
(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
“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.
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.
Fink can be so damn verbose by default and it also struggles to resolve dependencies at times.