Macports development for PowerPC (10.4, 10.5, 10.6): [unofficial] invitation to cooperate

[Traace]

I'd like to start developing a bit again but have trouble with the development environment...

Installed xcode 3.1.4 on Leopard 10.5.8 with Macports 2.8.1 but trying to build anything result in error

"Error: The installed version of Xcode (3.1.4) is too old to use on the installed OS version. Version 14.2 or late is recommended on MacOS."

Why do Macports to recommend to install a 2022 release of xcode here? I searched the Internet and Macports Bug Report Database without a solution.

Someone know how to fix this? I'm about to open a bug report at macports...

 

[barracuda156]

I'd like to start developing a bit again but have trouble with the development environment... Installed xcode 3.1.4 on Leopard 10.5.8 with Macports 2.8.1 but trying to build anything result in error "Error: The installed version of Xcode (3.1.4) is too old to use on the installed OS version. Version 14.2 or late is recommended on MacOS." Why do Macports to recommend to install a 2022 release of xcode here? I searched the Internet and Macports Bug Report Database without a solution. Someone know how to fix this? I'm about to open a bug report at macports...

Could you please clarify a) which arch is the system installed on; and b) how did you install Macports?

If you build from source or install dedicated version for Leopard, the error you reported should not occur, of course. If it is, something was messed up in 2.8.1, and it should be reported on Trac.

Leopard, both i386 and ppc, should be straightforward to install and use. ppc64 may be a bit tricky. (I cannot test it right now myself, since only have access to 10.6.8 Rosetta on my laptop.)

 

[Traace]

Could you please clarify a) which arch is the system installed on; and b) how did you install Macports?

If you build from source or install dedicated version for Leopard, the error you reported should not occur, of course. If it is, something was messed up in 2.8.1, and it should be reported on Trac.

Leopard, both i386 and ppc, should be straightforward to install and use. ppc64 may be a bit tricky. (I cannot test it right now myself, since only have access to 10.6.8 Rosetta on my laptop.)

Thanks for your reply

a) PowerPC G4 (ppc)
b) I didn't build from source, just installed MacPorts-2.8.1-10.5-Leopard.dmg to a fresh 10.5.8

xcode was installed with unix development stuff.

Can I just downgrade MacPorts to 2.8.0 with the corresponding .dmg?

 

[barracuda156]

Thanks for your reply

a) PowerPC G4 (ppc)
b) I didn't build from source, just installed MacPorts-2.8.1-10.5-Leopard.dmg to a fresh 10.5.8

xcode was installed with unix development stuff.

Can I just downgrade MacPorts to 2.8.0 with the corresponding .dmg?

1. Could you open a ticket here? https://trac.macports.org/newticket
What you describe does sound like an error in need of being fixed.

2. I would rather build from source, it is trivial:

cd __MACPORTS_EXTRACT_DIR__
./configure
make && sudo make install

Native installation does not require manual options, and on Leopard default choices should work.
Once installed, add required vars to the path: https://guide.macports.org/chunked/installing.shell.html
And parse ports:

sudo port sync

3. Having said that, 2.8.0 should be fine for the time-being either. (2.7.x will not work, there were some changes in port parsing.)

 

[Traace]

1. Could you open a ticket here? https://trac.macports.org/newticket
What you describe does sound like an error in need of being fixed.

2. I would rather build from source, it is trivial:

cd __MACPORTS_EXTRACT_DIR__
./configure
make && sudo make install

Native installation does not require manual options, and on Leopard default choices should work.
Once installed, add required vars to the path: https://guide.macports.org/chunked/installing.shell.html
And parse ports:

sudo port sync

3. Having said that, 2.8.0 should be fine for the time-being either. (2.7.x will not work, there were some changes in port parsing.)

Thanks but 2.8.0 doesn't work either... Gettings the same error as above

Things i tried, with a clean macports uninstall after every step:
1. Installed 2.8.0 via .dmg
2. Installed 2.8.1 from source
3. Installed 2.8.0 from source
4. Reinstalled xcode

Seems like macports is completly broken on this fresh ppc install. What is the last known working version?

 

[barracuda156]

Thanks but 2.8.0 doesn't work either... Gettings the same error as above

Things i tried, with a clean macports uninstall after every step:
1. Installed 2.8.0 via .dmg
2. Installed 2.8.1 from source
3. Installed 2.8.0 from source
4. Reinstalled xcode

Seems like macports is completly broken on this fresh ppc install. What is the last known working version?

Thank you for the update. TBH, this is super-strange, but I cannot say with certainty that I updated Macports on 10.5.8 to 2.8.0+ or not (and have no way to verify that atm).

But if it does not work from Leopard .dmg with default settings, something is likely to be broken, since – FWIU – it is supposed to work out of the box without any trickery with settings. (We do need minor trickery on 10.6 PPC and 10.6.8 Rosetta, but not on 10.5.8, at least not for ppc32.)

I went ahead and opened a ticket on Trac: https://trac.macports.org/ticket/66871
Hopefully someone can help us with this.

 

[barracuda156]

Seems like macports is completly broken on this fresh ppc install. What is the last known working version?

Please see Ryan’s response here: https://trac.macports.org/ticket/66871#comment:4

 

[barracuda156]

Thanks but 2.8.0 doesn't work either... Gettings the same error as above

Any luck with getting it to work? (Please let us know in the Trac ticket.)

 

[aurora72]

Are there any CMake 3.6 binaries for Snow Leopard? The maximum CMake binary version for SL is 3.5.

 

[barracuda156]

Are there any CMake 3.6 binaries for Snow Leopard? The maximum CMake binary version for SL is 3.5.

cmake-devel builds on 10.6.x, both Intel and ppc.

There may not be a pre-built binary, but it should build. If not, let me know, we fix that.

 

[aurora72]

cmake-devel builds on 10.6.x, both Intel and ppc.

There may not be a pre-built binary, but it should build. If not, let me know, we fix that.

Thanks for commenting. I've just built it now using the source code of cmakes 3.6.3 and the ./configure It got built as a command-line tool. I didn't need the CMake.app anyway. Problem solved.

Now what about the JDK-8? Will there ever be a Snow Leopard version of JDK-8? When you consider, JDK-8 exists even for the Windows XP, then it sould be for SL, too but there haven't been any so far.

 

[barracuda156]

Thanks for commenting. I've just built it now using the source code of cmakes 3.6.3 and the ./configure It got built as a command-line tool. I didn't need the CMake.app anyway. Problem solved.

Now what about the JDK-8? Will there ever be a Snow Leopard version of JDK-8? When you consider, JDK-8 exists even for the Windows XP, then it sould be for SL, too but there haven't been any so far.

1. You actually meant 3.6, not 3.26? That is archaic, it won’t be in Macports. The oldest version we have is in cmake-bootstrap port, 3.9.6. Why would you need it anyway? 3.9.6 does not require C++11, if that is the issue.

2. It is still unclear to me whether you refer to SL PPC (discussed in another thread here) or standard SL x86. However, in any case, neither builds: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/master/java/openjdk8/Portfile (see comments in the port).
It should be fixable, but sort of no one has enough time and/or motivation.
There is some work here, worth taking a look: https://github.com/nilsvanvelzen/mac_ppc_openjdk8u60

 

[dysmas]

Hi Barracuda.

I recently acquired a Power Mac G5, 2Ghz, 8GB ram, running Tiger, and you have my axe.

I work a lot, but would like to utilize any free time I have to contribute and start writing code for these beautiful machines.

 

[barracuda156]

1. You actually meant 3.6, not 3.26? That is archaic, it won’t be in Macports. The oldest version we have is in cmake-bootstrap port, 3.9.6. Why would you need it anyway? 3.9.6 does not require C++11, if that is the issue.

2. It is still unclear to me whether you refer to SL PPC (discussed in another thread here) or standard SL x86. However, in any case, neither builds: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/master/java/openjdk8/Portfile (see comments in the port).
It should be fixable, but sort of no one has enough time and/or motivation.
There is some work here, worth taking a look: https://github.com/nilsvanvelzen/mac_ppc_openjdk8u60

P. S. There are two possible alternative options:

1. Build icedtea7 with gcj (gcc6), build icedtea8 with icedtea7. See: https://github.com/icedtea-git/icedtea/blob/2.6/INSTALL
2. Build this once it is ready: https://github.com/Zopolis4/gcj

 

[barracuda156]

Hi Barracuda.

I recently acquired a Power Mac G5, 2Ghz, 8GB ram, running Tiger, and you have my axe.

I work a lot, but would like to utilize any free time I have to contribute and start writing code for these beautiful machines.

Awesome!

 

[aurora72]

1. You actually meant 3.6, not 3.26? That is archaic, it won’t be in Macports. The oldest version we have is in cmake-bootstrap port, 3.9.6. Why would you need it anyway? 3.9.6 does not require C++11, if that is the issue.

2. It is still unclear to me whether you refer to SL PPC (discussed in another thread here) or standard SL x86. However, in any case, neither builds: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/master/java/openjdk8/Portfile (see comments in the port).
It should be fixable, but sort of no one has enough time and/or motivation.
There is some work here, worth taking a look: https://github.com/nilsvanvelzen/mac_ppc_openjdk8u60

Yes, I meant 3.6 no typo. As I tried to compile a package which is distributed with CMakeLists.txt, I had a configuration error. It was the cmake-3.5.3, so I wanted to try it with one higher version, which is 3.6.

As for the JDK-8, I mainly refer to the SL x86. As a comparison, a version of JDK-8 exists for Windows XP (zulu jdk8.0.153-win_i686) So I reckon a version for SL sooner or later must be possible. Popular applications such as JDownloader2 requires JDK-8.

 

[barracuda156]

Yes, I meant 3.6 no typo. As I tried to compile a package which is distributed with CMakeLists.txt, I had a configuration error. It was the cmake-3.5.3, so I wanted to try it with one higher version, which is 3.6.

As for the JDK-8, I mainly refer to the SL x86. As a comparison, a version of JDK-8 exists for Windows XP (zulu jdk8.0.153-win_i686) So I reckon a version for SL sooner or later must be possible. Popular applications such as JDownloader2 requires JDK-8.

1. Normally a higher version gonna work, you do not need to install an old one. (Exceptions might occur, of course.)
I think I never faced a build failure due to CMake being too new.

2. I cannot really help much here, since I did not touch the code at all. It certainly should be possible – and not too hard, arguably – since you talk about a mainstream, well-supported 64-bit arch. If something fails, it is merely an SDK issue, which should be fixable – another matter is how many instances of such are there in the code…

Personally I am far more interested in NodeJS/V8, but that one is also a huge and painful mess LOL

 

[barracuda156]

If anyone here know NodeJS, v8 or Java decently well, we could probably fix those.

Java 8 currently builds up to AWT libs, which need extra fixes.
Node in its v8 parts need some adjustments to PPC code for Darwin.

 

[aurora72]

Alright, what about pandoc? Can it be compiled on a PowePC (Sorbet) Leopard Mac?

 

[doctor_dog]

I can't speak to trying to build it outside of Macports, but the current version in Macports only builds for x86 and ARM, at a minimum because one of it's dependencies (cabal) won't build for PPC. There's probably more dependncies that don't build on PPC.

You could maybe go way back in MP github port tree and see if there are versions of the dependencies that once built for PPC (and any other dependencies that fail), but it'd be a PITA IMHO.

 

[barracuda156]

Alright, what about pandoc? Can it be compiled on a PowePC (Sorbet) Leopard Mac?

I believe, it requires GHC? The best we have on PPC is GHC 7.6.3 (well, I have, FWIW). I never tried building Pandoc, not high on priority list, since it is needed only for documentation for R, can survive without that.

I opened an issue with upstream, let us see: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/8782

 

[barracuda156]

I can't speak to trying to build it outside of Macports, but the current version in Macports only builds for x86 and ARM, at a minimum because one of it's dependencies (cabal) won't build for PPC. There's probably more dependncies that don't build on PPC.

You could maybe go way back in MP github port tree and see if there are versions of the dependencies that once built for PPC (and any other dependencies that fail), but it'd be a PITA IMHO.

Correct thing to do is the following, FWIU (it is non-trivial, I know):

1. Restore PPC code into GHC (moderately difficult – we know what to restore, but locations and possibly syntax changed since then).
See: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/16106

2. Fix current GHC for 10.6 Intel. See: https://trac.macports.org/ticket/65156#comment:6

3. Build gcc10+ as a cross-compiler (outside Macports).

4. Cross-compile GHC for ppc, using cross-gcc and GHC x86.

Anyone interested in this, please ping me. I want to fix this finally, but it is a huge task, and I am not good with Intel stuff, which is unavoidable here.

 

[aurora72]

I can't speak to trying to build it outside of Macports, but the current version in Macports only builds for x86 and ARM, at a minimum because one of it's dependencies (cabal) won't build for PPC. There's probably more dependncies that don't build on PPC.

You could maybe go way back in MP github port tree and see if there are versions of the dependencies that once built for PPC (and any other dependencies that fail), but it'd be a PITA IMHO.

To be honest, I don't use MacPorts, it's not installed in any of my computers at all so it's unlikely for me to search the MacPorts.

The reason I asked about pandoc is because I think it's a good fit for the PowerPC Mac. It's a solely command-line tool, it doesn't entail too many dependencies and it's a utility which I would use on my Mac mini G4

 

[aurora72]

I believe, it requires GHC? The best we have on PPC is GHC 7.6.3 (well, I have, FWIW). I never tried building Pandoc, not high on priority list, since it is needed only for documentation for R, can survive without that.

I opened an issue with upstream, let us see: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/8782

Nope, the pandoc is not only for R documentation. Actually, the R constitutes only a small fraction of its usage. pandoc is used in many circumstances. In my case I often use it to convert html and markdown to PDF, so that I can read the web pages and documentations easily on my tablet.

 

[barracuda156]

To be honest, I don't use MacPorts, it's not installed in any of my computers at all so it's unlikely for me to search the MacPorts.

The reason I asked about pandoc is because I think it's a good fit for the PowerPC Mac. It's a solely command-line tool, it doesn't entail too many dependencies and it's a utility which I would use on my Mac mini G4

I did that for you: Pandoc versions in Macports go back to ~2006. Chances are that was building for PPC.

But anything depending on GHC is a tough task in fact. Would be easier if it merely had many dependencies ))