problem installing latest (and older) Macports

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 17, 2014, at 18:57, John Graybeal <jbgraybeal at mindspring.com> wrote:

>> It should be the same as for any version: download the installer package and run it.
> 
> the site I found for 1.7.1 download (had all the historical Macports releases) only had the tar.gz2, which I unpacked, bu tthere was no installer package (that I recognized), no README, and I couldn't decipher what the top-level Make command would be ('Make clean' didn't work; may have given up too early on this path though).   And I couldn't make install.sh go either.
> 
> could have been operator error, but I think it was underdocumented.
> 
> john
> 
> <Screen Shot 2014-01-17 at 4.55.39 PM.png>

That’s the source code, not the pre-compiled installer. To use the source code, you would need to compile it; we have separate instructions for that:

https://trac.macports.org/wiki/InstallingMacPorts#source_privileged

Installing the pre-compiled binaries is easier:

https://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/downloads/MacPorts-1.7.1/

However Leopard was the newest OS X version available at the time, so that’s the newest OS for which a pre-compiled binary of 1.7.1 exists, and you shouldn’t install that on newer OS X versions.

So uninstalling the old version like you did is indeed best.

A lot has changed in MacPorts since 2005. Let us know if you have any questions.