Two different copies of MacPorts on the same system?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jul 1, 2013, at 00:06, Blair Zajac wrote:

> Yes, definitely.  We've had 3 different copies of MacPorts installed at the same time.
> 
> I always set --prefix=$PREFIX --with-tclpackage=$PREFIX/lib/tcl/macports to ensure that each copy installs all its files into its own prefix.

So, first, in case it's not obvious, you'll need to compile MacPorts from source. The pre-compiled installer package is fixed to the /opt/local prefix.

Besides setting --prefix and --with-tclpackage to different values from your normal MacPorts install, you also need a different --applications_dir and --frameworks_dir. I use $PREFIX/Applications and $PREFIX/Library/Frameworks respectively.

I recommend you set "startupitem_type none" in macports.conf of your secondary installation(s), otherwise you'll have trouble activating ports that install startup items if you already have them installed in your primary installation.

The dbus port is unique and does not use that setting. The workaround is to install the dbus port without its startupitem variant, in your secondary installation(s).