Build and Use Macports on a Linux System

[mmpestorich (Mike M Pestorich)]

I recently got the trunk to compile on my Linux system and thought I would share the few things I had to do in order to get it to do so.

I created a patch that adds strlcpy() to pextlib1.0/tracelib.c​ and sysctlbyname() to macports1.0/sysctl.c​. These C Library functions are available in BSDs but not in Linux. I pulled these implementations from OpenBSD.

After a successful make and make install, running the port command would segfault on unsetenv * in port1.0/portutil.tcl​ on Line #394​. So I simply removed the line of code (probably not the best fix):

sed -i "s:unsetenv \*::" ${PREFIX}/share/macports/Tcl/port1.0/portutil.tcl

Seems to run with no problems.

Don't know if anyone would be interested in any of this and not sure that creating a ticket is the right place for this information, but it would be nice to see macports supported on the linux platform as it's a fantastic package management tool.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

The big thing missing here is the copyright notices from the OpenBSD files these functions were taken from. We can't distribute the code without them. Also, it would probably be good to put these two functions in their own file to make it clear what the different copyright applies to.

Using autoconf to detect whether the host system has these functions and using our own versions only if it does not would be nice, too.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Actually, I just realised that tracelib only works on Darwin, and I don't think the sysctls we use exist on non-Darwin either. So just not using this code on other platforms would probably be an easier fix.

[afb@…]

MacPorts had "support" for Linux added in MacPorts 1.6.0, but it was gradually removed due to lack of interest and now gone. So the only other platform at the moment is FreeBSD, and even that is more or less only for base (and not for the ports)...

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

This all appears to be fixed in trunk now.