Fwd: Problem with Macports, homebrew, and ghostscript

[Ryan Schmidt]

Sending again from the correct address…


On Feb 11, 2014, at 03:08, macosforge.99.kyoto at spamgourmet.com wrote:
> 
> Based on some bad internet advice I appear to have installed homebrew without realizing it is not compatible (so to speak) with macports, and so I installed ghostscript via homebrew, without realizing that I had already installed it via macports, and that it appears to have been already installed "natively"...
> 
> What I mean is:
> 
> If I "port installed" I can see
> ghostscript @9.10_0
>  ghostscript @9.10_2+x11 (active)
> 
> If I "brew list installed" I see
> ghostscript: stable 9.07, HEAD
> but actually it is not linked, and I get a message
> Could not symlink file: /usr/local/Cellar/ghostscript/9.07/bin/wftopfa
> Target /usr/local/bin/wftopfa already exists. You may need to delete it.
> 
> but if I just run gs straight from the terminal, I have
> GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
> 
> I don't know how I created this mess...but am not sure what to do.
> 
> Should I delete ghostscript from homebrew? If I do will I destroy it from macports? Will I destroy the 9.05 version?
> I know that I am using ghostscript with LyX and some other TeX programs...I will have to figure out how to make sure they will still function but I think they all look for gs in usr/local/bin…ack!

MacPorts shouldn’t affect anything in /usr/local or most other locations outside of /opt/local. However, software installed in /usr/local and some other locations can affect MacPorts. Therefore we don’t support using MacPorts when you’ve installed software in /usr/local, which you seem to have. Similar problems can also occur when other package managers are installed in addition to MacPorts. So you should decide which package manager you want to use, and uninstall the other(s). If you choose to stay with MacPorts, then look in /usr/local after uninstalling Homebrew and ensure it’s empty. Then hopefully you can use MacPorts installed software safely.