Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Clemens Lang]

Hi,

- On 13 Aug, 2019, at 05:01, Ken Cunningham ken.cunningham.web...@gmail.com 
wrote:

> Compilers like clang are prebuilt to search first in /usr/local for include
> files and libraries, and then after that in /usr (or -isysroot).
> 
> SO -- if you have things installed in /usr/local then those headers and
> libraries will be found automatically and, helpfully, USED.
> 
> THIS is why people love HomeBrew so much -- things seem to  "just work" 
> because
> they are installed (or symlinked) into /usr/local.
> 
> However, this is also why things break cryptically without being able to 
> figure
> out what the heck is going on. Because headers in /usr/local are being used
> instead of the ones you thought would be used.
> 
> IF you are very very clever, and can keep track of all this, you can use
> multiple different systems together successfully.

To re-iterate on this, if you really really want to keep things in /usr/local, 
make it
a habit of doing all your port operations with the `-t` flag to enable trace 
mode (see
https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#buildfails, point 4).

Trace mode will make a best effort to hide files in /usr/local (and other 
locations
that shouldn't exist on a "clean" system) from the build. Your builds will be 
slower,
but they will be less likely to fail.

-- 
Clemens Lang

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Kenneth F. Cunningham]

> On Aug 9, 2019, at 18:50, Andrew Udvare wrote:
> 
> > I can see one way: alias port or the Homebrew command to fix PATH to remove 
> > either because this is the main point of conflict. And you have to make 
> > sure you don't install other conflicting commands. So something that is 
> > installed with MacPorts may also need PATH to be fixed.
> 
> MacPorts ignores the PATH while building ports. Yet build problems can still 
> appear if you have Homebrew (or Fink) installed to their default locations 
> (or other software installed to a common location like /usr/local) while 
> building something with MacPorts.

Compilers like clang are prebuilt to search first in /usr/local for include 
files and libraries, and then after that in /usr (or -isysroot).

SO -- if you have things installed in /usr/local then those headers and 
libraries will be found automatically and, helpfully, USED.

THIS is why people love HomeBrew so much -- things seem to  "just work" because 
they are installed (or symlinked) into /usr/local. 

However, this is also why things break cryptically without being able to figure 
out what the heck is going on. Because headers in /usr/local are being used 
instead of the ones you thought would be used.

IF you are very very clever, and can keep track of all this, you can use 
multiple different systems together successfully. 

Otherwise, you are doomed to never knowing what the H*LL is going on with your 
failed builds.

Best,

K

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 9, 2019, at 18:50, Andrew Udvare wrote:

> I can see one way: alias port or the Homebrew command to fix PATH to remove 
> either because this is the main point of conflict. And you have to make sure 
> you don't install other conflicting commands. So something that is installed 
> with MacPorts may also need PATH to be fixed.

MacPorts ignores the PATH while building ports. Yet build problems can still 
appear if you have Homebrew (or Fink) installed to their default locations (or 
other software installed to a common location like /usr/local) while building 
something with MacPorts. This is because many software authors try to be 
"helpful" by making their build systems look in the default MacPorts, Homebrew, 
and/or Fink locations for the libraries they need, in who knows what order. 
When we find these we try to add a patch to remove this "helpfulness", but I'm 
sure we haven't found all of the cases where this happens.

We recommend you use one package manager only, and uninstall the others. If you 
want to use MacPorts primarily but there's one package in Homebrew that you 
need, why not contribute a Portfile of that software to MacPorts?

If you must use multiple package managers simultaneously, a probably relatively 
safe way to do so would be to install each with a nonstandard prefix. Of 
course, this has consequences. In MacPorts, for example, it means you can't use 
the MacPorts installer and must build MacPorts from source. It also means you 
can't use any of our precompiled binaries for ports, which means you must 
compile all ports from source, which is a pretty significant drawback. So 
please seriously consider just sticking with one package manager in its default 
location.

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 10, 2019, at 07:22, Carlo Tambuatco wrote:

> My HB is installed in /usr/local and MP is installed in /opt/local, and they 
> seem to live peacefully side by side. I've experienced zero compatibility 
> issues as of yet.

Do not have things in /usr/local while using MacPorts.

https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#usrlocal

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Carlo Tambuatco]

Been using HB and MP side by side for the past year and a half...had zero
problems with it. I mainly use homebrew for stuff I either can't find on
MP, or that has been problematic for installation or upgrading on MP
eg:emacs, sbcl, etc...I find HB to be more flexible than MP in finding and
installing the formulae that I need that MP just doesn't have. That being
said, I don't think there's any overlap between the formulae I've installed
using HB and the ports I've installed in MP, except for ImageMagick, and a
duplicate version of python37, which HB conveniently installed in
/usr/local/bin/python3, so there's no conflict between HB and MP. I have a
version of emacs installed with HB that works quite well with a version of
gnuplot I installed on MP. The ImageMagick installed by HB is a dependency
for the emacs-plus formula, and the ImageMagick installed by MP is a
dependency of the Octave language. My HB is installed in /usr/local and MP
is installed in /opt/local, and they seem to live peacefully side by side.
I've experienced zero compatibility issues as of yet.

On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 10:15 PM Dmitri Zaitsev  wrote:

> That would interest me too but I have the opposite experience --
> I left HB in the exact same (broken) state as it ended up with after using
> it for years (with increasingly broken experience) and MacPorts just worked
> for me, to the point that it installed packages that would break if
> installing from their official sources.
>
> Could you illustrate by an example how the HB can affect them?
>
> On Saturday, August 10, 2019, Mark Anderson  wrote:
>
>> It's possible. But I have had nothing but trouble with it, so much so
>> that I just went about fixing the macport port.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 6:44 PM Gerben Wierda 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> See subject.
>>>
>>> Gerben Wierda
>>> Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture
>>> 
>>> Mastering ArchiMate 
>>> Architecture for Real Enterprises
>>>  at
>>> InfoWorld
>>> On Slippery Ice  at EAPJ
>>>
>>>
>
> --
> Dmitri Zaitsev
> School of Mathematics
> Trinity College Dublin
>
> WWW:  http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~zaitsev/
>
>

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Dmitri Zaitsev]

That would interest me too but I have the opposite experience --
I left HB in the exact same (broken) state as it ended up with after using
it for years (with increasingly broken experience) and MacPorts just worked
for me, to the point that it installed packages that would break if
installing from their official sources.

Could you illustrate by an example how the HB can affect them?

On Saturday, August 10, 2019, Mark Anderson  wrote:

> It's possible. But I have had nothing but trouble with it, so much so that
> I just went about fixing the macport port.
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 6:44 PM Gerben Wierda  wrote:
>
>> See subject.
>>
>> Gerben Wierda
>> Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture
>> 
>> Mastering ArchiMate 
>> Architecture for Real Enterprises
>>  at
>> InfoWorld
>> On Slippery Ice  at EAPJ
>>
>>

-- 
Dmitri Zaitsev
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin

WWW:  http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~zaitsev/

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Andrew Udvare]

I can see one way: alias port or the Homebrew command to fix PATH to remove 
either because this is the main point of conflict. And you have to make sure 
you don't install other conflicting commands. So something that is installed 
with MacPorts may also need PATH to be fixed.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 9, 2019, at 18:44, Gerben Wierda  wrote:
> 
> See subject.
> 
> Gerben Wierda
> Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture
> Mastering ArchiMate
> Architecture for Real Enterprises at InfoWorld
> On Slippery Ice at EAPJ
> 

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Mojca Miklavec]

Dear Gerben,

On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 at 00:44, Gerben Wierda wrote:
>
> See subject.

If you must do it, install HomeBrew to a location other than
/usr/local, make sure that you don't have MacPorts in PATH when
building HB packages from source (not sure if that's still a thing,
they are moving to binary-only), and ideally don't have HB in path
when building for MacPorts, even though MacPorts should usually be
immune to that (unless you have HB in /usr/local, in which case you
are "screwed by definition" and should not expect anything to work
correctly; 
https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-package-managers/).

Mojca

PS: on MacPorts TeX Live works at least all the way down to 10.5 PPC
;), while HB fetches the few gigabytes from MacTeX page which strictly
only supports the last three OSes. That's a pretty good approximation
of different approaches both projects are taking.
https://ports.macports.org/port/texlive-bin

Re: I'm already using Homebrew for a couple of things, Is it problematic to use Homebrew and MacPorts side by side?

[Mark Anderson]

It's possible. But I have had nothing but trouble with it, so much so that
I just went about fixing the macport port.


On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 6:44 PM Gerben Wierda  wrote:

> See subject.
>
> Gerben Wierda
> Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture 
> Mastering ArchiMate 
> Architecture for Real Enterprises
>  at
> InfoWorld
> On Slippery Ice  at EAPJ
>
>