What is DarwinPorts?

DarwinPorts provides an infrastructure for open source software building, installing, and packaging.  It is designed to match the same functionality as the FreeBSD Ports system while providing extensibility for future enhancements.

System Requirements:

This disk image contains a Universal binary for Mac OS X 10.4.x (Darwin 8.x) and requires valid TCL, curl and OpenSSL installations to function - all present by default within Mac OS X. Also required is the installation of Apple's XCode (available as a separate install from your OS X CDs or DVD, or from Apple's Developer site: http://developer.apple.com/).

Usage:

You may access the port command via the command line from the "Terminal" application, located in the Utilities folder inside Applications. The install location for the port command is /opt/local/bin. If necessary, the installer will modify your PATH setting to include this location so that DarwinPorts is available to you within subsequent terminal sessions. You may have to quit and restart your terminal application for this change to take effect.

The "Port Authority" application, available as a separate download and installation from http://www.wordtech-software.com/dpgui.html, allows you to interact with DarwinPorts through a graphical user interface (GUI). If you install Port Authority, you'll find it available in the DarwinPorts folder inside your Applications Folder.

* DISCLAIMER: The Port Authority application is a separate installation and it's not officially supported by the DarwinPorts project.

What is Installed:

DarwinPorts will be installed in "/opt/local/var/db/dports".  Within these directories you should find a "sources" directory, which is kept up-to-date through the sync and selfupdate targets of the port command. Please read the port(1) man page for more information.

Documentation:

The "DarwinPorts User Guide" is available at http://www.darwinports.org/docs/. Also provided are man pages for port, ports.conf, portfile, portgroup, portstyle, and porthier. These can be invoked by typing: "man" followed by the name of the command or file (e.g. "man port" or "man ports.conf").

For further assistance, please consult help section of our website: http://www.darwinports.org/help/

Using the Port Command

    The following terminal command will allow an administrator to build and install a port:

	sudo port install <portname> 

    To find a specific port:

	port search <portname>

(where <portname> is the port you wish to install or search for, respectively)

Please consult the port(1) man page for complete documentation of this command.

Creating New Ports:

If you are interested in developing your own ports for private usage, or would like to submit your ports for inclusion within the DarwinPorts software repository, please consult the documentation provided on our website. DarwinPorts depends on a community of active participants, we would welcome your contributions!

Thank you for your interest in DarwinPorts!