Hi again, thanks everyone for the help, but now I've got some more problems:( I'm on Mac 10.4.10, just installed macport1.5.0. but when i tried to install cairo i got: jing-tangs-computer:~ Jing$ sudo port install cairo Error: Error executing darwin_8: invalid command name "configure.compiler" Error: Unable to execute port: Error evaluating variants I looked online and found someone saying he got the same problem and after updating the problem was solved. so i tried to update macport by port selfupdate, but i got: jing-tangs-computer:~ Jing$ sudo -u root port selfupdate Error: /opt/local/bin//port: selfupdate failed: Couldn't sync the ports tree: sync failed doing rsync could anyone give me some ideas please? thanks very much!!! Jing Tang School of Computer Science University of Birmingham Mobile: 07872645655 E-mail: jing.t86@gmail.com