Problem with Macports, homebrew, and ghostscript

[Ryan Schmidt]

You replied only to me. Remember to use the Reply All button in your email program to reply to the group also. I’ve re-added the group address to this reply.


On Feb 12, 2014, at 01:37, macosforge.99.kyoto at spamgourmet.com wrote:

> Thank you for responding to my query（not sure if this reply is going to you or the entire group???). Yes, I would like give up on homebrew and stick with macport...I was led into using it without realizing the consequences. I have no idea which is better or which I need, 
> 
> but I am not adept enough at unix to figure out what I will need to do do/check to make sure removing homebrew  doesn't mess up things worse. Right now everything except vietOCR seems to be working just fine, and I don't want to mess it up. As far as computers go, I am "porting" from windows, and  just beginning to catch up on all the ins and outs of how linux does things, and sometimes it throws me a surprise....
> 
> am I right that you are implying if I uninstall homebrew I will not mess up ports, e.g. ghostscript, installed via macport? That was key number one.

Hopefully removing the software you have in /usr/local would not cause problems for software you installed using MacPorts, but I cannot guarantee that. The problem is that by installing software in /usr/local (whether by using Homebrew or other means), other software you build (including software build using MacPorts) may find that software in /usr/local and use it. This is why we do not support installing software in /usr/local while using MacPorts: because it leads to unpredictable results and sometimes problems.


> At the least I would like to properly deal with the ghostscript 9.0.7...I need to figure out why homebrew didn't link...I would like ot know if I uninstall it will it also uninstall 9.0.5 (as it usually would in windows....)
> I was able to figure out via terminal that opt/local/bin is ghostscript 9.10
> and that usr/local/bin/gs is 9.5
> and 9.7 is in /usr/local/Cellar/ghostscript/9.07/bin/gs, which I assume is the unlinked brew, and that 9.5 must have been an old brew. I only installed it because I didn't know I already had ghostscript.

I have never used Homebrew so I do not know how it works. I recommend you consult Homebrew documentation for instructions on how to uninstall Homebrew and anything you installed with it, if you would like to use MacPorts instead. Otherwise, consult the MacPorts Guide for instructions on uninstalling MacPorts so that you can instead use Homebrew.


> Generally I don't mind uninstalling homebrew, but I can see that usr/local/bin has some things/formulas that don't seem to come from homebrew, specifically the  texlive-2013 I just installed via the pkg seems to have landed in usr/local/texlive. Also, I see directories for QT and macGPG2. So my next question is what do I do about these?

I recommend you remove anything in /usr/local to ensure you do not introduce problems for software built using MacPorts. If removing /usr/local reveals that problems were already introduced for software you previously built using MacPorts, rebuild those MacPorts ports, for example using rev-upgrade as suggested earlier in this thread.


> Can they coexist/be installed with macports? If not, should I move to homebrew, except I have quite a bit installed via macports, and would ahve to install all these via homebrew, correct??

As a manager of the MacPorts project, and having not used any other OS X package manager in many many years, I of course recommend you use MacPorts. If there’s anything Homebrew is doing for you that MacPorts isn’t, please let us know so that we can investigate whether we can improve MacPorts to meet your needs. For example, if individual software packages you need are not in MacPorts, file port request tickets in our issue tracker.