MacPorts installer should warn if /opt is not a directory

[martin.streicher@…]

My machine had a symbolic link named /opt, which pointed to a non-existent directory named /private/opt. When I tried to install MacPorts, the preflight script failed to create /opt and so the install failed. Perhaps an error message would be helpful, if /opt wasn't a true directory.

[ryandesign@…]

/opt should not be a symlink. But it seems that CiscoVPN versions before 4.9 did appropriate /opt and make it a symlink pointing to /private/opt. We had a FAQ entry about this but it was removed in 2006 because it was thought to no longer be relevant for current versions of the Cisco software.

Apologies for the unprofessional language in this FAQ entry; it's old documentation that has already been deleted from the current FAQ, but I bring it up because it seems relevant to this ticket.

FAQ?version=1#IjustinstalledMacPorts1.2fromthe.dmgandIseemtohavelostallmyinstalledportsakaCiscoVPNatemyMacPorts

[toby@…]

Milestone MacPorts base bugs deleted

[ryandesign@…]

Replying to ryandesign@…:

/opt should not be a symlink.

What I meant to say was that in a standard MacPorts install, nothing would cause /opt to be a symlink. There shouldn't be anything wrong with the user choosing to make /opt a symlink if desired, except that this is now broken with MacPorts 1.8.0.