4 ms·

> but I do use macports as it is arguably closer to the "feel" and stability of something like yum. That is 'cos it was developed by the same developers, hired

> but I do use macports as it is arguably closer to the "feel" and stability of something like yum. That is 'cos it was developed by the same developers, hired by Apple, who also created the ports system on FreeBSD.

luckman212 5y ago
Never tried MacPorts (longtime brew user) -- sounds like the grass is a little greener there. Any downsides to switching?
- azalemeth 5y ago
  Honestly, they're both very good, and any discussion of this is going to be almost bordering on opinion and little else. Here are a few potential downsides: - The 'kool kids' tend to use brew -- so sometimes you end up with packages that are not in the ports ecosystem. That said, the total number of ports is, I believe, about 4x larger than brew's formulae. But take that number with a pinch of salt. - Every time you upgrade the OS (e.g. 10.14 to 10.15) you need to effectively reinstall ports. This sounds hard, but it isn't -- it's also well documented [1]. It's because they link against various OS-specific foundations. - Very rarely you run into apt-style "dependency hell". This has only happened to me once or twice in ~15 years of using it, and is easily fixed. The upsides: - All that being said, it's rock stable - The documentation is excellent - It doesn't come with google analytics by default (unlike brew -- which is opt-out, I should say) - Macports retains the entire dependency tree of a package and offers both source and binary builds A more detailed comparison could be found e.g. here: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-package-managers/ https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack... [1] https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration
- webmobdev 5y ago
  You'll have to use sudo more. :) The advantages are however umpteen: MacPorts has excellent support for older macOS versions. It is built with C and TCL and is compact and blazing fast, compared to HomeBrew which is a bunch of Ruby scripts. MacPorts has the highest number of packages available for macOS, and all other Package Managers trail behind it (last I remember, it had like 5 times more packages than HB). HomeBrew packages sometimes have dependency on the installed OS packages. This is good for saving space. MacPorts however maintains and installs all dependencies separate from the OS. So there is no danger of corrupting OS installed packages or vice versa. Another advantage is you never know whether Apple has customised some packages for their own use, and if it will behave differently. MacPorts doesn't do any kind of data collection. HomeBrew has Google Analytics integrated within it (it can, and has to, be turned off). MacPorts adheres to the unix philosophy better than HomeBrew, both in terms of security and where packages are stored in the OS. Here's a good FAQ to peruse - https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ

luckman212 5y ago

Never tried MacPorts (longtime brew user) -- sounds like the grass is a little greener there. Any downsides to switching?

azalemeth 5y ago
Honestly, they're both very good, and any discussion of this is going to be almost bordering on opinion and little else. Here are a few potential downsides: - The 'kool kids' tend to use brew -- so sometimes you end up with packages that are not in the ports ecosystem. That said, the total number of ports is, I believe, about 4x larger than brew's formulae. But take that number with a pinch of salt. - Every time you upgrade the OS (e.g. 10.14 to 10.15) you need to effectively reinstall ports. This sounds hard, but it isn't -- it's also well documented [1]. It's because they link against various OS-specific foundations. - Very rarely you run into apt-style "dependency hell". This has only happened to me once or twice in ~15 years of using it, and is easily fixed. The upsides: - All that being said, it's rock stable - The documentation is excellent - It doesn't come with google analytics by default (unlike brew -- which is opt-out, I should say) - Macports retains the entire dependency tree of a package and offers both source and binary builds A more detailed comparison could be found e.g. here: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-package-managers/ https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack... [1] https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration
webmobdev 5y ago
You'll have to use sudo more. :) The advantages are however umpteen: MacPorts has excellent support for older macOS versions. It is built with C and TCL and is compact and blazing fast, compared to HomeBrew which is a bunch of Ruby scripts. MacPorts has the highest number of packages available for macOS, and all other Package Managers trail behind it (last I remember, it had like 5 times more packages than HB). HomeBrew packages sometimes have dependency on the installed OS packages. This is good for saving space. MacPorts however maintains and installs all dependencies separate from the OS. So there is no danger of corrupting OS installed packages or vice versa. Another advantage is you never know whether Apple has customised some packages for their own use, and if it will behave differently. MacPorts doesn't do any kind of data collection. HomeBrew has Google Analytics integrated within it (it can, and has to, be turned off). MacPorts adheres to the unix philosophy better than HomeBrew, both in terms of security and where packages are stored in the OS. Here's a good FAQ to peruse - https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ