On Dec 28, 2007, at 10:58, lisfolks wrote:

If I understand the Trac FAQ correctly, if I'm on an Intel-based Mac (such as my MacBook Pro), ports will install as +universal by default (if they have a +universal variant, anyway). Is that true?

No. If you're on an Intel Mac, Intel binaries get built by default. If you're on a PowerPC Mac, PowerPC binaries get built by default. On either kind of Mac, if you ask for the +universal variant, universal (combined PowerPC and Intel) binaries get built. This is the general case. Certain individual ports may always build universal even if you didn't ask for it. If you could suggest any changes we could make to the FAQ entry to make this more clear, by all means please do. http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki/ FAQ#IsMacPortsUniversal

Also, how can I tell which variant a port has been installed as?

"port installed foo" will show you what variants were selected to install foo.

On Dec 28, 2007, at 11:37, LeAnne Lis wrote:

If I want to update all of my ports to +universal, then, what would be the best way? I'm guessing, based on the FAQ, that probably I should completely remove my MacPorts installation and start over?

Complete removal and reinstallation of MacPorts is a good idea if you have, for example, all of your ports built for PowerPC, but have migrated to an Intel Mac. But if you have all your ports built for the correct architecture for your system already, and just want to start installing universal versions, then you can do it a bit at a time. I'm doing this. Look at your installed ports, and find one that has no dependencies. ("port deps foo" will tell you.) For example, you probably have zlib installed, and zlib has no dependencies. Forcibly uninstall this port and reinstall it with the +universal variant: sudo port -f uninstall zlib sudo port clean --work zlib sudo port install zlib +universal Once that builds, do the same for another port with no dependencies, or one which depends only on the ports you've already reinstalled as universal. For example, libpng only depends on zlib, so if you've rebuilt zlib universal, you can then try installing libpng universal. You certainly could alternately just delete all of MacPorts and reinstall, always selecting the +universal variant when installing ports. But some ports may not yet build universal, so you might be forced to install some ports non-universal anyway. Note that the only reason why you'd need to install universal versions of ports at all is if you plan to use your installed ports on both a PowerPC and an Intel Mac, for example if you install MacPorts to an external hard drive that you move between a PowerPC and an Intel Mac. If you're just using MacPorts on a single Mac, you don't need universal ports.