Existing users, 
I believe that the last few comments are unfair. Although it is true that dependency problems exist for some ports and that the project is not as mature and reliable as, say, Debian's aptitude or maybe even Fink, it is an invaluable tool in many circumstances, especially for developers. It nearly always has up-to-date versions of its ports, whereas Fink (at least in the past – cannot judge because I do not use it now) had obsolete versions of many packages. It has packages that you would not find anywhere else (not even in Fink) and you would have to compile yourself if needed. The fact that it does not link to OS X's libraries but it needs to install its own has proved to be a plus, not a drawback, in my past experience: I can install the most recent releases of Boost libraries, Ruby, PHP, Perl, Apache, etc… without touching OS X. Even better, I can make MacPorts's versions coexist with OS X's ones. MacPorts, in my opinion, is the way to go for MySQL and PostgreSQL: all the other distributions I've seen lack some libraries or scatter things in folders like Library, Framework, etc… making it difficult sometimes to undo an installation. With MacPorts, with a simple command I'm done with all I need (including a launchd item to start and stop the server). And I *know* where all the files are. Finally, if I screw up MacPorts, as a last resort I may simply trash its folder and reinstall (never needed to to do that in the last two years). The few times I have had problems installing a package, a Google search has solved my problem.
Overall, MacPorts is not "to be avoided", it is "mostly needed" if you are developing on Mac OS X.
MacPorts
Install various open-source software packages on Mac OS X.
Version: 1.8.1
Unfair reviews
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: barone.cosimo Sunday, March 29 2009 @ 10:08 AM PDT
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Over One Year
Overall Rating:
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Why are they unfair? - Rufus J
One of the purposes of Versiontracker ia to allow users to report their experiences with software, which potentially serves the interests of other users. My review of MacPorts was based on my frustration attempting to build several different major packages. One of them, Pike, I had had no trouble building from source on G4 machines, but had no luck on my G5. MacPorts seemed to be the answer. The PPC package refused to compile. The Universal version did complie but not with support for several features, including MySQL. I have all the necessary components installed in their usual locations, but MacPorts doesn't care.... doesn't even look. I bit the bullet and installed a redundant MySQL with MacPorts to satisfy this dependancy and lo and behold it couldn't locate it and refused to compile support for it.I tried without success to install two large packages with complicated dependencies for which MacPorts is the developer approved way of installing in OS X. A search revealed that the installs are known to fail and everyone who wants these softs is in the same leaky boat.
Those are my experiences. Sorry, but it's not unfair to report them here. These are precisely the kinds of problems that a package system is supposed to avoid. For me it failed miserably. I don't need it to install software that otherwise compiles as simply as configure+make+make install. You are welcome to report that you find some usefulness where I find frustration. It won't cause me to dismiss your commentary as baseless. But, just because you like it, doesn't mean everyone else must, or that we can't say we don't.
For the record, it should be trivial to get port to allow the option to look for dependencies in the entire system before forcing the installation of its own versions and that's something I think they need to do. It would not interfere with users who prefer the current method. I believe this forced insistence is plain old Germanic arrogance; "I know what's best..."
I recognize that MacPorts offers many packages with more up to date dependencies than fink and that MacPorts is the only way to conveniently install some software. These things are only valuable when the packages work, and if the whole system fits how the user wants to administer software on his system. My experience was supremely frustrating and it is not unfair to report it here.
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Sunday, March 29 2009 @ 08:09 PM PDT