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Darwin Ports

14 November 2005

Darwin Ports is a package manager aimed at Mac OS X as well as OpenDarwin:

> "The DarwinPorts Project's main goal is to provide an easy way to install various open-source software products on the Darwin OS family"

Hexley - the Darwin Mascot

To install Darwin Ports, you either compile it from source (possibly the best way) or to install the binary. I am going to be lazy and install the binary. You can find it at the Darwin Ports hompage. Darwin Ports requires you to have installed XCode Tools, (see Get GCC with XCode Tools).

You basically open the dmg file and it will install for you in the normal OS X way.

Using Darwin Ports

To install a piece of software, type the following into your terminal or console:

sudo port install lynx

Where lynx is the name of the the program in the ports tree. To find the name, look on the darwin ports website, or use the command:

port search lynx

The install command above will install emacs and all its dependencies. You may want to know what you are letting your self in for before you install it, if so then run the command:

port deps emacs

The 'ports tree' is a database (actually just a directory of text files) that contains all the instructions and data about the available programs. The database is held on your machine but there is also a copy held on a server somewhere.

Once in a while you should synchronise the copy on your machine with the copy of the server, this is how your machine finds out that there are new versions available. Use the command:

port sync

After that you can upgrade your installed software by using the command:

sudo port -a upgrade

For more about darwin-ports, you can read the online guide as well as the less friendly but more to the point man page by typing:

man ports

The first few programs may seem to have a lot of dependencies, do not worry, it gets better. There are a few key dependencies used by many programs.

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Hello, my name is Zeth, I'll be your host here.

Command Line Warriors is about taking control of your own technology, it looks at our experiences of computing; especially using GNU/Linux, the Python programming language, the command-line and issues such as techno-ethics, best practices and whatever is cool now. If you take control of your technology then you are a Warrior too!

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Hi Jordan, yes that URL is gone now. I have a new contact form on this site.
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