Should I Uninstall MacPorts to Reinstall?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Mar 22, 2012, at 08:19, Susana wrote:

> I'm a new user, and I think this is how I ask a question.

Yes; welcome!


> I am downloading the digiKam photo application, and to do that, I was required to download Xcode and Macports.  I downloaded Xcode 3.0 and then I downloaded Macports.  In the terminal, it said:
> "Warning: The installed version of Xcode (3.0) is known to cause problems.  Version 3.1.4 or later is recommended on Mac OS X 10.5."
> 
> So now I have downloaded 3.1.4 Xcode.  Do I need to reinstall Macports because of the new Xcode version?

No; you can just install the new Xcode.


> I am worried that during the Macports installation, it said that certain things being downloaded were not found (written in the Terminal window), and I wonder if that's because I had an older version of Xcode that it says causes problems.

Without seeing the exact text of the error message, I'm not sure what happened. I recommend you run "sudo port -v selfupdate" in the terminal, and assuming that runs to the end without an error, you should be set to begin installing digikam.


> But I'm worried that if I uninstall Macports, I might mess something up, especially since MacPorts website says uninstalling can be a drastic action.  Honestly, I don't really know what Macports is at the moment (should look into that).

MacPorts makes it easy to install other software packages, like digikam.


> I just downloaded because of digiKam.  I didn't have it before, so how can uninstalling be drastic?  Does it have to do with the software I download using MacPorts?  I'd assume since I haven't made the final step of downloading digiKam, it would be okay to uninstlal since I haven't used MacPorts.  I've opened/installed it but have not used it to download software.

Uninstalling MacPorts and all ports is a drastic step if you have already used MacPorts to install a lot of software; it would mean having to reinstall all of them, which might take a lot of time. Since you haven't installed anything with MacPorts yet, there would be no problem uninstalling it. But also no need to at this point.


> And does Xcode come with your Apple computer?  MacPorts does not?

Xcode is a product of Apple Inc; an installer for Xcode comes on the discs that accompany some Macs, but it's not preinstalled on the computer. But even if a version of Xcode is on your installer discs, it's probably old, so we usually recommend you download the latest version for your OS from the Apple Developer Connection web site. 3.1.4 is the last version of Xcode for Leopard.

MacPorts is not a product of Apple Inc and does not come with your Mac. Like most other third-party program, you download it from the program's web site and install it if you want it.