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MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

(sigpipe.macromates.com)
2031 points jrk | 18 comments | 22 May 20 15:39 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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soraminazuki ◴[22 May 20 17:36 UTC] No.23274749[source]▶
Up until the release of Catalina, I've always upgraded to the latest version of macOS within a month or two. But some of the changes this time is really stopping me from upgrading.

As of Catalina, there's no sane way to install the Nix package manager without losing functionality because macOS now disallows creating new files in the root directory[1]. Nix stores its packages in the /nix directory and it's not possible to migrate without causing major disruptions for existing NixOS and other Linux users. This is too bad, since apart from Nix being a nice package manager, it also provides a sane binary package for Emacs. The Homebrew core/cask versions only provides a limited feature set[2][3].

[1]: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/2925

[2]: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/31510

[3]: https://github.com/caldwell/build-emacs/search?q=support+is%...

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yalogin ◴[22 May 20 18:16 UTC] No.23275183[source]▶
Brew never had this problem because they chose a sane path without corrupting the system directory. It’s a bad design on part of NixOS and one can even say the changes in the macOS were designed to encourage good/sane design.
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1. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 18:58 UTC] No.23275633[source]▶
> Brew never had this problem because they chose a sane path without corrupting the system directory.

Ha, no. They did the absolute worst thing they could have done and now that they are popular they think they "own" /usr/local. (They used to camp out in /usr, but Apple rightfully put a stop to that real quick when SIP came out.)

replies(1): >>23275701 #
2. Wowfunhappy ◴[22 May 20 19:04 UTC] No.23275701[source]▶
This is why, of the two, I prefer Macports.
replies(2): >>23275740 #>>23276705 #
3. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 19:08 UTC] No.23275740[source]▶
Happy MacPorts user of just over a year as well, for a variety of reasons I won't get into here but that being one of them.
replies(1): >>23275942 #
4. etoulas ◴[22 May 20 19:28 UTC] No.23275942{3}[source]▶
Very satisfied MacPorts user since 16 years. I really don’t get why brew is a thing...
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5. fastball ◴[22 May 20 19:46 UTC] No.23276102{4}[source]▶
Because 10 years ago when I first started installing software from the command line on my mac, a large number of the packages I wanted to install were very outdated on MacPorts, and {CURRENT_VERSION} on homebrew.

Also `brew cask` is nice.

EDIT: also that Macbook had a 128GB HDD, so space was kinda precious, and MacPorts installing its own version of libs that were already on the system was literally taking up GBs of space.

replies(1): >>23276471 #
6. kitsunesoba ◴[22 May 20 20:18 UTC] No.23276471{5}[source]▶
In addition to outdated ports, several times I had issues with macports mucking with or otherwise interfering with the system-bundled copies of things which was a real headache.

Seems like the ideal setup would be something like Homebrew, except it "lives" in the ~/Library/Brews/ folder or something to that effect.

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7. ◴[22 May 20 20:28 UTC] No.23276561{6}[source]▶
8. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 20:31 UTC] No.23276598{6}[source]▶
Homebrew does this far more often. MacPorts is off in its own world in /opt/local, which is actually mildly inconvenient sometimes because a lot of things won't pick it up when you want them to.
replies(1): >>23277312 #
9. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 20:32 UTC] No.23276608{4}[source]▶
I think part of it is that they just advertised a lot more. When Homebrew came out, I seem to recall them advertising MacPorts as basically being old and busted. (Not literally those words, probably, but that was the general gist.)
10. jcelerier ◴[22 May 20 20:38 UTC] No.23276678{4}[source]▶
Five or so years ago I evaluated between brew and macports, macports package were much more out of date while I needed fairly recent packages and brew had more of what I needed at the time.
replies(1): >>23278308 #
11. wl ◴[22 May 20 20:40 UTC] No.23276705[source]▶
Also, Macports never phoned home to Google without asking permission or notification, unlike Homebrew.
replies(1): >>23277379 #
12. vbezhenar ◴[22 May 20 21:06 UTC] No.23277038{4}[source]▶
ports are for old beards, brew for cool hipsters.
13. Wowfunhappy ◴[22 May 20 21:34 UTC] No.23277312{7}[source]▶
Tiny typo that confused me, I think you mean:

> a lot of things won't pick it up when you want them to.

replies(1): >>23277333 #
14. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 21:36 UTC] No.23277333{8}[source]▶
Thanks! I fixed it to limit confusion.
replies(1): >>23277407 #
15. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 21:42 UTC] No.23277379{3}[source]▶
I'm much happier with their stance on it, too: https://lists.macports.org/pipermail/macports-dev/2019-March...
16. Wowfunhappy ◴[22 May 20 21:45 UTC] No.23277407{9}[source]▶
Completely off-topic, but do you somehow get notifications about replies to your comments? You often manage to respond within a couple minutes. :)
replies(1): >>23277440 #
17. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 21:47 UTC] No.23277440{10}[source]▶
https://www.hnreplies.com
18. saagarjha ◴[22 May 20 23:32 UTC] No.23278308{5}[source]▶
Not sure about five years ago, but these days it's usually not to bad for popular packages.