[MacPorts] FAQ modified

[MacPorts Wiki]

Page "FAQ" was changed by jmroot
Diff URL: <https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ?action=diff&version=186>
Revision 186
Comment: add FAQ about source vs binary installation
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Index: FAQ
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--- FAQ (version: 185)
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 [[PageOutline(2-3,Table of Contents,inline)]]
 
 == General Questions ==
+
+=== Does MacPorts always build from source? ===
+
+MacPorts 2.0.0, released in 2011, added the ability to securely install ports from prebuilt binary archives. With a default configuration; you don't need to do anything to take advantage of this,
+MacPorts will automatically install from an archive if one is available.
+
+If no archive is available, MacPorts will fall back to building from source. This can happen for a number of reasons:
+ * Each port is only prebuilt with its default set of variants. So if you specify different variants when installing, the port will be built from source.
+ * Some software has a license that is incompatible with that of a dependency, making it impossible to legally distribute binaries. A common example is software licensed under the GPL that depends on OpenSSL without adding a special exception to allow linking with it.
+ * Archives are only prebuilt for a limited number of CPU architectures and OS versions.
+ * If you are using a custom value for any of the following macports.conf settings, the prebuilt archives are not compatible with your installation and will not be used: `prefix`, `applications_dir`, `frameworks_dir`, `cxx_stdlib`, `delete_la_files`
+
+These limitations could be avoided by using a custom archive site configured to suit your needs, rather than the official one, though of course someone still needs to build the archives. See [wiki:howto/ShareArchives2].
 
 === A port fails to build. What should I do? === #buildfails
 
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