The thing with MacPorts is, basically, you're installing a parallel universe that doesn't know about the software your system already had. So it has to bootstra

The thing with MacPorts is, basically, you're installing a parallel universe that doesn't know about the software your system already had. So it has to bootstrap completely from scratch, including its own toolchain, basic libraries, etc. Once you get all that, it goes faster, but the first time you go to install something simple you're basically going to walk away for a couple hours while it sets up its own little world.