Hi, Riccardo You may be better off switching to my fork on PowerPC. (I beg an apology for “self-advertising”, but this is an honest assessment.) That is at least fully tested on 10.6, and tested on 10.5 for essential ports (toolchain should work fine). Though I cannot promise at the moment (due to being away from the hardware) that archaic gcc will install, since I explicitly dropped support for anything earlier than gcc13 (aside from gcc10-bootstrap, of course).
Do you really need gcc-4.8 and gcc7 after all? Generally everything must work with gcc14 (or gcc15, I guess). Of existing ports, tenfourfox requires gcc-4.8, but tenfourfox itself is of little utility now (and available pre-built if you need it for something specific). There are white-star / powerfox which build with modern gcc. Aside of that, I cannot recall what may need specifically an old non-Apple gcc version. Even if such ports exist, it may be worthwhile to fix them to build with modern gcc rather than carrying on dependency on the whole zoo of gcc versions. If you already have gcc15 via MacPorts, you may just try using that, avoiding old versions. And if something fails to build with it, bug reports will be useful. On x86 ports install quickly because MacPorts has buildbots for those systems. You will have the same on 10.6.8 ppc with my PPCPorts (and to some extent on 10.5.8 if building for ppc64). Best regards, Sergey On Wed, Apr 8, 2026 at 7:53 PM Riccardo Mottola via macports-dev < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > I am experiencing a bad gcc/libgcc dependency cycle on PPC 10.5 which I > do not have on Intel. > > I always used with success gcc 4.8 & gcc7. > > Upgrade process installed gcc 15 and libgcc15 (took days to compile!). > > Now I have this situation: > > port installed | grep gcc > gcc7 @7.5.0_4 (active) > gcc10-bootstrap @10.5.0_0+universal (active) > gcc15 @15.2.0_0 (active) > gcc48 @4.8.5_6 (active) > gcc_select @0.1_10 (active) > libgcc @9.0_0 > libgcc @15_0 (active) > libgcc6 @6.5.0_4 (active) > libgcc15 @15.2.0_0 (active) > > Now if I want to use gcc7 forcing it for ports, like this: > sudo port -v upgrade gobject-introspection > configure.compiler=macports-gcc-7 > > > <...> > > ---> Cleaning libgcc14 > ---> Removing work directory for libgcc14 > Updating dependencies for gcc_select @0.1_10 > Updating dependencies for gcc7 @7.5.0_4 > ---> Installing libgcc13 @13.4.0_1 (2/9) > ---> Computing dependencies for libgcc13...... > libgcc11 is known to fail. Try to install anyway? [y/N]: y > . > libgcc12 is known to fail. Try to install anyway? [y/N]: y > . > libgcc13 is known to fail. Try to install anyway? [y/N]: y > > The following dependencies will be installed: > libgcc10 > libgcc11 > libgcc12 > libgcc13 > libgcc7 > libgcc8 > libgcc9 > Continue? [Y/n]: > Error: The following dependencies were not installed because all of them > have unmet dependencies (likely due to a dependency cycle): libgcc7 > libgcc8 libgcc9 libgcc10 libgcc11 libgcc12 libgcc13 > Error: Problem while installing libgcc13 @13.4.0_1 > Error: Follow https://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets if you believe > there is a bug. > > on Intel, I got less intermediate libgcc and their installation was also > quick! > > > If I do: > sudo port -v upgrade gobject-introspection > configure.compiler=macports-gcc-4.8 > > The following new ports will be installed as dependencies: > libgcc13 > libgcc12 > libgcc11 > libgcc10 > libgcc9 > libgcc8 > libgcc7 > Continue? [Y/n]: > > and now libgcc13 installation started without warnings that it will > fail. However it starts unpacking full libgcc13 sources so I fear it > will take ages. > > > Riccardo >
