Apple Silicon Hardware and MacPorts

[Alexander Newman]

Hello All,

I hope that this is the right place to ask a few questions about Apple Silicon Hardware and MacPorts - I won’t be offended if this post is ignored.

I’ve trawled through the FAQs but can’t find any references to Apple Silicon hardware, which I assume is a good thing. I do realise that a number of MacPorts ports appear not to be compilable for AS systems, yet.

I currently have a mid-2010 27” i7 iMac (32 MB RAM) that is running Ventura on top of OCLP (and doing much better than it did natively running High Sierra with the last security updates). I am using this solution until I can figure out what Apple Silicon best meets my needs with respect to compiling MacPorts ports (I use Inkscape, R and Octave, amongst other things). I should also say that an entry-level 2017 21.5” iMac (bottom spec) that one of my family members acquired is without doubt the worst computer that I’ve ever used, and that includes 8088/6 DOS machines. Nice screen, but a horror to do try and do anything on.

I have been waiting for several years to see what I can replace the 27” iMac with - the Mac Studio is probably over-powered for my requirements, the Mac mini M2 needs an external display (finding a decent quality 27”+ display seems to be difficult here were I live, in Australia, and the Apple Studio Display is wickedly expensive), and I wasn’t at all sure that the M1 iMac would cut it, especially after the experiences with the ghastly 21.5” iMac.

The M3 iMac is out now, which may or may not change things, so I am currently pondering whether I should plump for a specced-out M3 iMac now, wait to see what sort of mini (M3, M3 Pro?) comes out next year (presumably), or wait for a lower-end M3 Max Studio (again, next year, and least preferred option).

Are large-ish MacPorts ports going to compile all right on a 24 MB RAM iMac with, say, a 2TB SSD, without the hardware throttling? The same with running R. Do many people on this list use AS machines, and what are their experiences and advice regarding MacPorts on them? Am I in fact over-thinking it?

Best regards,
Alex.
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