On Oct 10, 2007, at 00:11, David Epstein wrote:
Ryan Schmidt wrote:
A-ha! Revelation! You have things in /opt/local that did not come from MacPorts!...[snip]...
MacPorts likes to be in almost complete control of its prefix, likes to know what's in it. (It's fine to keep some config files there, but having other software there that MacPorts doesn't know about is not ok.) Paul's advice is good -- move /opt/local out of the way. However, you cannot move a directory into itself. So, try "mv /opt/ local /opt/local-old"
I'll move /opt/local aside, as you and Paul Beard suggest.
But I have the impression that quite a number of non-macports packages want to be placed in /opt/local, and even do so without asking permission. So this could conflict with what you say about MacPorts wanting to keep /opt/local/ to itself. I have certainly been advised by people who know a lot more about software than I do, that downloaded software should go into /opt/local/.
I'm not aware of any software, other than MacPorts, that uses /opt/ local by default. If you know of any, please let us know their names. /usr/local, not /opt/local, is the standard location for user- installed software on a system, and is the default for many packages.