[OS X TeX] OT: Autotrace

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 14 mars 07 à 03:16, Enrico Franconi a écrit :

> In don't know when what you claim was the case, but for sure this  
> is definitely *not* the case now. Have a look at:
> <http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/docs/ch01s03.html#configure_dports>
> where it is clearly stated that the macports path is placed *after*  
> your standard path. If what you said were true, then I would agree  
> with you (and this is the case for fink, for example, which, as you  
> said, created several problems to me as well for this reason); but  
> this is not the case of MacPorts. Sorry - MacPorts is not  
> imperialistic, it lives smoothly with your mac without changing its  
> standard habits.

I've never seen the change (i.e. moving /opt/local/bin and /opt/local/ 
sbin before the standard path) documented, even in the DarwinPorts  
and MacPorts mailing list archives, but it's indeed there.

The doc you're referring to is the former doc of DarwinPorts, dating  
back to 2004. For MacPorts, the doc seems to be the Wiki <http:// 
trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki> and at the corresponding  
installation page you'll see:

> The MacPorts binary installer places a .profile file in your home  
> directory (view files preceded by a dot with 'ls -a'). The contents  
> of this ~/.profile file adds the MacPorts paths in front of the  
> standard Unix paths for the default BASH shell. This is done so  
> that if you have utilities or libraries from both MacPorts and OS  
> X's standard install, the MacPorts libraries will be run instead of  
> the ones provided by Apple.
>
> export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

There is also a discussion of this choice at the FAQ <http:// 
trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki/FAQ>:

> Will MacPorts link to system libraries rather than its own?
>
> No, MacPorts maintains its own libraries.
>
> Why is MacPorts using its own libraries?
>
> There are several reasons to do so. First, it makes ports more  
> compatible across different versions of Darwin/OS X. If we can rely  
> on e. g. openssl 0.9.8 from MacPorts, we don't have to test every  
> port that needs ssl for every available openssl installation.  
> Apple's software tends to break from time to time (e. g. openssl  
> refuses to build with an old zlib, but Apple shipped the old  
> headers of the vulnerable zlib version). Third reason is up-to- 
> dateness: Apple only features e. g. Python 2.3, not 2.4, with which  
> some software does not work. The drawbacks on this behaviour also  
> are minimal: Wasting 10MB for a Python installation is next to  
> nothing if you have a GB-harddisk and gain consistency all the way  
> in return.

Needless to say, I don't agree with it. It's probably a fine choice  
if you want MacPorts to take over your system, but not if you want it  
to co-exist peacefully with OS X.

You can verify that the binary installer, available at either of:

<http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/downloads/DarwinPorts-1.3.1-10.4.dmg>
<http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/downloads/ 
DarwinPorts-1.3.1/DarwinPorts-1.3.1-10.4.dmg>

does precisely that: if you look inside the postflight script of  
the .pkg package on the disk image, you'll find:

> echo ""
> echo "Checking the PATH variable for $USER..."
> echo ""
>
> BINPATH=/opt/local/bin
> SBINPATH=/opt/local/sbin
> TMP=`/usr/bin/mktemp /tmp/dp.$$`
> $SHELL -l <<EOF > $TMP
>     /usr/bin/printenv PATH
>     exit
> EOF
>
> if grep $BINPATH $TMP >/dev/null 2>&1; then
> 	echo "You already have the right PATH - l337!"
> else
>     USHELL=`basename $SHELL`
>    echo "Setting the PATH of $USHELL for $USER in ${HOME:=/Users/ 
> $USER}..."
>     case $USHELL in
>       *csh)
>         /bin/cp -fp $HOME/.cshrc $HOME/.cshrc.dpsaved	# we backup  
> the original
>         echo "#" >> $HOME/.cshrc
>         echo "# Your previous .cshrc (if any) is saved  
> as .cshrc.dpsaved" >> $HOME/.cshrc
>         echo "# Setting the path for DarwinPorts." >> $HOME/.cshrc
>         echo "set path=($BINPATH $SBINPATH" '$path'")" >> $HOME/.cshrc
>         chown $USER $HOME/.cshrc
>         echo "Finished modifying $HOME/.cshrc"
>        ;;
>       *sh)
>         /bin/cp -fp $HOME/.profile $HOME/.profile.dpsaved # we  
> backup the original
>         echo "#" >> $HOME/.profile
>         echo "# Your previous .profile  (if any) is saved  
> as .profile.dpsaved" >> $HOME/.profile
>         echo "# Setting the path for DarwinPorts." >> $HOME/.profile
>         echo "export PATH=$BINPATH:$SBINPATH:\$PATH" >> $HOME/.profile
>         chown $USER $HOME/.profile
>         echo "Finished modifying $HOME/.profile"
>         ;;
>       *)
>         echo "Unknown shell! Please set your own PATH manually."
>         ;;
>     esac
> fi
>
> export PATH=$BINPATH:$PATH

Bruno Voisin
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