[GRASS-user] Pros/Cons of different build strategies on OS X

[David Finlayson]

I've got three brand new OS X Leopard Mac Pros that need the complete
OS Geographic software stack built (GMT, GRASS, Image Magic, etc) but
I have limited experience in OS X. For years on Debian/Ubuntu I just
let the package manager (aptget) handle all the libraries and I only
compiled from source the main programs that weren't in the repository.

What do you do to build up all the libraries? Manage the dozens of
required libraries manually? Fink? MacPorts? William Kyngesburye?

I tried using MacPorts on a Tiger laptop and wound up downloading and
compiling a brand new OS in /opt/local by the time I was done
satisfying dependencies---complete with a duplicate version of GCC
(SciPy wanted the new F95 compiler, I guess). That was a colossal
effort, a complete waist of all the work Apple has done and introduced
serious confusion between native OS X and X11 libraries which I never
completely resolved. In fact, a few days ago, GRASS stopped compiling
altogether because of an OpenGL problem...Anyway, I'd like to avoid
that if possible. Any ideas?

-- 
David Finlayson, Ph.D.
Operational Geologist

U.S. Geological Survey
Pacific Science Center
400 Natural Bridges Drive
Santa Cruz, CA  95060, USA

Tel: 831-427-4757, Fax: 831-427-4748, E-mail: dfinlayson at usgs.gov