DHReutter

Today a new version of the great MacPorts tool has been released. MacPorts is a package system for MacOS X, as fink or apt of Debian fame. In other words, it opens the path to tons (5247 ports, to be precise) of open source software in a convenient and yet configurable way. It is very actively developed and most ports compile on my MacBook without further ado. I switched from fink to MacPorts a while ago, the main reasons being the latter was more consistent in its policies and offered more packages.

Now a new version has been released. While reading the vast list of changes and bugfixes in the ChangeLog, I found some things that I wished for for a long time now:

• A port with dependents can now be removed without forcing iff it is inactive and there is at least one other version of the same port installed
• port search looks now in name, description and long_description for the search pattern and prints the list sorted
• Stopped 'port -R upgrade' from processing more ports than it should, and from processing ports multiple times
• New fetch.type git (I didn't wait for this, exactly, but I'm sure esden, whom I welcome back to the blogosphere after his long absence would like to hear these news)

Many more changes are still stated. So if you're still thinking about how to get open source software running on your computer, or if you're using ports already, now's the time to get the latest version, this as a good advice from yours truly.