Where should non-macports sw be installed? (Was: Problem with Macports, homebrew, and ghostscript

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Feb 14, 2014, at 11:56, Gregory Shenaut wrote:

> On Feb 14, 2014, at 08:46 , Mark Anderson wrote:
> 
>> I also install into /opt/<something> where <something> expands to something descriptive of all the crap I am installing in there. Then I can turn PATHs on and off depending. This is really important for playing with things like the gtk+ cocoa that needs its whole space to itself. Just DONT use /opt or /opt/local of course. I also set them to be owned by my user, so I don't have to sudo to install. If I do, I know something is up.
> 
> I've been reluctant to use anything under /opt because in the event I ever need to scrub macports and start over, it's easier to remove /opt and reinstall macports from scratch.

Feel free to install anything you like in prefix /opt/<anything-other-than-local>. That’s a great and standardized location for random other software to go that won’t interfere with MacPorts.

The default MacPorts prefix is /opt/local. If you need to uninstall MacPorts, you can follow our uninstallation instructions, which will have you removing /opt/local and a few other paths, but not /opt/<anything-other-than-local>.


> What I'm seeing from these responses is basically what I had always assumed, namely that macports doesn't really care where you install other software, as long as it isn't in /opt (or perhaps only /opt/local).

If you want to install random other software while also using MacPorts, I suggest you install that other software into a prefix that is not any of the following:

* /usr
* /usr/local
* /opt/local
* your MacPorts prefix (if different from /opt/local)
* /sw

And also avoid installing frameworks into /Library/Frameworks and of course /System/Library/Frameworks.

I think that’s about it.