| 5 | | Since MacPorts supports OpenDarwin, and OpenDarwin has run on Intel platforms since Mac OS X 10.0 and prior (as NextStep or Next OS), chances are that most of the MacPorts ports will run without problem on Mac OS X Intel. Binary installation of MacPorts on Mac OS X Intel is available since the 1.2.1 release. If you encounter a port that will not work on Intel: This is a bug! Problem is, that many projects need some time to adopt to the new platform and also that most of our developers do not own a Intel-Mac (donations welcome ;)). |
| | 5 | MacPorts works on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs, but the ports you install will be compiled only for the architecture you're currently running on. This means that if you migrate from, say, a PowerPC Mac to an Intel one and use Migration Assistant to copy your data to the new machine, you should reinstall all your ports on the new machine to rebuild them for Intel. It may be simpler to completely remove all of MacPorts and start fresh. See below for uninstallation instructions, but be sure to keep any configuration files you need. |
| | 6 | |
| | 7 | For many ports, there's now an alternative: select the +universal variant when you build each port, and MacPorts will create universal binaries that work on both Intel and PowerPC. This can be useful if you anticipate migrating to a different Mac soon, or if you want to install MacPorts on an external hard drive that's used by both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs. But note that because +universal is new, it may not work correctly for all ports, even if no error message is shown during installation. If you find a port that will not build with +universal, or if it builds but then does not work correctly, please file a bug report. If you can provide a patch to fix the problem, that's even better. |
| | 8 | |
| | 9 | Some ports may only work on PowerPC Macs or only on Intel Macs. In some cases, these are bugs that need to be fixed. If there is a newer version of the software available, you should report this to the port maintainer. Maybe the new version works correctly on both architectures. If the port is already using the latest version, report the problem to the upstream authors of the software; the software may need to be updated. In other cases, the software may be specifically written for one processor architecture such that it will not be possible to make it available to the other. |
