this must be an odd question to make, but I've recently had difficulties with my system and I'd like to confirm that my system (i.e. computer, currently at 10.4.8 and Xcode 2.4) is a more probable culprit then the ports system. The symptom is that installing ports or getting info about them fails. I've even had panics like the following:

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Thu Oct 12 12:17:34 2006

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x00215C84): bad dir

Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:

      Backtrace:

         0x00095138 0x00095650 0x00026898 0x00215C84 0x000FB124 0x000E1EE8 0x000E1A7C 0x000EE74C

         0x000EEB04 0x000EEBA4 0x002AAE28 0x000AB930 0xFF4F0000

Proceeding back via exception chain:

   Exception state (sv=0x20F27C80)

      PC=0x90021A0C; MSR=0x0000F030; DAR=0x00306000; DSISR=0x42000000; LR=0x9003CB68; R1=0xBFFF9F70; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 8.8.0: Fri Sep  8 17:18:57 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.12.6.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC

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This one was obtained by writing "ll $(port contents mysql5)" in the Terminal (should produce some garbage due to "port x contains", but then produce a long list of information on the files, this is related to the symptom that symbolic links often are empty in my installs). The previous panic port was ruby, but it did not install at all. I don't really see a chance myself for the port command to cause a panic in such a predictable way (as tcl is using normal userland system services!?). It is more probably so(?) that there are some bad blocks or something that these installs have hit.

If I am the only one who has experienced things like this, I'll start to complain in one direction…