Why does Macports reinstall already available software?

[Chris Jones]

On 09/10/12 14:29, Chris Jones wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When you say you already have some packages installed, do you mean via
> MacPorts, or via some other method external to MacPorts ?

Just noticed you said these packages where installed in /usr/local, 
which almost certainly means they are not MacPorts packages. So see my 
comment below.

Also note that having packages in /usr/local is actively discouraged, as 
it can interfere with MacPorts. See

https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#usrlocal

What do you have in there ? If it is all things MacPorts has ports for, 
your best bet is to nuke it, and then just use the MacPorts versions.

Chris

>
> If external, then what you are seeing is normal expected behaviour.
> MacPorts does not use external third party libraries, and will install
> all the dependencies it needs for a given package itself. For more
> details on why, see
>
> https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#syslibs
>
> Chris
>
> On 09/10/12 14:24, Jakob van Bethlehem wrote:
>> Dear users,
>>
>> As a brand new user of macports I may oversee some obvious places to
>> look for answers, if so, my apologies - I'm always happy with a
>> reference to the appropriate documentation documents. But sofar I have
>> been unable to figure out an answer to the following scenario:
>> - I have a system that has already some package installed, e.g.
>> subversion 1.7.6 (same happened for Python 2.x series) in /usr/local/
>> - Next I try to install a macport of some package that has these
>> software suites as a dependency (in this case eric4, or bluefish for the
>> Python-case)
>> - Macports installs a brand new version of those dependencies in
>> /opt/local.... why?
>>
>> Short of the unneeded use of hd-space, this gives me enormous headaches
>> in setting my PATH correctly, and afaics for no reason. So, what's what
>> I can't see (yet) ?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Jakob van Bethlehem
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> macports-users at lists.macosforge.org
>> http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/macports-users
>
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