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MacPorts seem to be very “user” friendly for people with Unix and/or Gentoo (maybe a bit Arch too) background. I have experience with all three and when I neede

by 404mm 6y ago

MacPorts seem to be very “user” friendly for people with Unix and/or Gentoo (maybe a bit Arch too) background. I have experience with all three and when I needed to decide in between HomeBrew and MacPorts, it was very simple choice. I tried both to get the actual experience and stuck with MacPorts. All the naming in HomeBrew was just too confusing too me.

zests 6y ago
I've never used MacPorts. Go figure, I just realized that "MacPorts" means "bsd ports for mac". I'll have to try it sometime and see if I prefer the look and feel of MacPorts.
- 404mm 6y ago
  If you liked bsd ports, you are probably going to like MacPorts too. I only wish they better advertise how to set up MacPorts without sudo/within users homedir. I have been using it like that for 4 years and it works great. No worries about affecting mac core bins. Highly recommend if you want to just test it out
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  I've found it rather easy to use, I've only been a mac user for a couple of years. I've not had any problems with updates either. I switched from brew fairly quickly when brew told me I couldn't install packages because they weren't "safe" even though I knew they were in fact fine because I've used them for years on linux.
deleted 6y ago
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fossuser 6y ago
Gentoo is probably the most user hostile Linux distribution I can think of other than ones purposely austere for learning (LFS) or parody (Suicide Linux). If Mac Ports requires that level of knowledge to be user friendly it’s no surprise they lost.
- spijdar 6y ago
  If Gentoo makes your particular computer goal easier to achieve, I don't think it's "hostile". Most people will never need Gentoo or want to use it, but for those with either a need or a desire for a meta-distribution, Gentoo does a pretty good job. I don't think calling it "user hostile" is quite right. I think it's been partially supplanted by other package managers now like Nix/NixOS and even (IMO) XBPS/Void, but Portage does an alright job.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    I used Gentoo for a while and mostly liked it. There was one reason I stopped using it -- dependency conflicts. Every time you update, there's a new set of conflicts that you have to personally untangle. By any other metric, I would consider it more user-friendly than average. For example, I was very favorably impressed when (not knowing what I was doing), I gave the command to uninstall libc, and after confirming that I really wanted to do that, I was allowed to.
    - 404mm 6y ago
      Ha, what was it, emerge -e world ? Or something like that. It’s been like 15 years since I did that. The community feel was pretty good. Excellent documentation/wiki. And it was by far the best Linux education I could have ask for back in those days. I’m happy ...
- LiberatedLlama 6y ago
  I used gentoo for a few years and found it to be very pleasant, with a great wiki. The only reason I ever stopped using it is because I realized how senseless it was to build everything from source on a laptop with questionable thermal characteristics. Running laptop fans full tilt for hours on end a few times a week evidently exceeds their expected duty cycle, who'd have thunk, but I had to replace the fan in my T60p twice before I learned this lesson. Building everything with Macports would have the same problem, except worse because mac laptops were never as easy to repair as thinkpads, particularly not in recent years.
- 6y ago

by 404mm 6y ago

zests 6y ago

I've never used MacPorts. Go figure, I just realized that "MacPorts" means "bsd ports for mac". I'll have to try it sometime and see if I prefer the look and feel of MacPorts.

404mm 6y ago
If you liked bsd ports, you are probably going to like MacPorts too. I only wish they better advertise how to set up MacPorts without sudo/within users homedir. I have been using it like that for 4 years and it works great. No worries about affecting mac core bins. Highly recommend if you want to just test it out
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I've found it rather easy to use, I've only been a mac user for a couple of years. I've not had any problems with updates either. I switched from brew fairly quickly when brew told me I couldn't install packages because they weren't "safe" even though I knew they were in fact fine because I've used them for years on linux.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fossuser 6y ago

Gentoo is probably the most user hostile Linux distribution I can think of other than ones purposely austere for learning (LFS) or parody (Suicide Linux). If Mac Ports requires that level of knowledge to be user friendly it’s no surprise they lost.

spijdar 6y ago
If Gentoo makes your particular computer goal easier to achieve, I don't think it's "hostile". Most people will never need Gentoo or want to use it, but for those with either a need or a desire for a meta-distribution, Gentoo does a pretty good job. I don't think calling it "user hostile" is quite right. I think it's been partially supplanted by other package managers now like Nix/NixOS and even (IMO) XBPS/Void, but Portage does an alright job.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  I used Gentoo for a while and mostly liked it. There was one reason I stopped using it -- dependency conflicts. Every time you update, there's a new set of conflicts that you have to personally untangle. By any other metric, I would consider it more user-friendly than average. For example, I was very favorably impressed when (not knowing what I was doing), I gave the command to uninstall libc, and after confirming that I really wanted to do that, I was allowed to.
  - 404mm 6y ago
    Ha, what was it, emerge -e world ? Or something like that. It’s been like 15 years since I did that. The community feel was pretty good. Excellent documentation/wiki. And it was by far the best Linux education I could have ask for back in those days. I’m happy ...
LiberatedLlama 6y ago
I used gentoo for a few years and found it to be very pleasant, with a great wiki. The only reason I ever stopped using it is because I realized how senseless it was to build everything from source on a laptop with questionable thermal characteristics. Running laptop fans full tilt for hours on end a few times a week evidently exceeds their expected duty cycle, who'd have thunk, but I had to replace the fan in my T60p twice before I learned this lesson. Building everything with Macports would have the same problem, except worse because mac laptops were never as easy to repair as thinkpads, particularly not in recent years.
6y ago