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smnbldwn

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 17, 2016
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Over the years since I got my PowerBook in 2016, I have alternated between Tigerbrew and MacPorts, depending on which one supported the old hardware best. I am currently on Tigerbrew but am seeing more activity in MacPorts at the moment. One of my main use cases is running a more recent Python version including libraries like Pygame. I have not got this working at the moment. I am interested to see recommendations. Is it time to switch back to MacPorts?
 
Over the years since I got my PowerBook in 2016, I have alternated between Tigerbrew and MacPorts, depending on which one supported the old hardware best. I am currently on Tigerbrew but am seeing more activity in MacPorts at the moment. One of my main use cases is running a more recent Python version including libraries like Pygame. I have not got this working at the moment. I am interested to see recommendations. Is it time to switch back to MacPorts?
I don’t think there is a working version of SDL 2.0 which newer versions of pygame require. That’s why I chose the NetBSD route instead. It runs on my PowerPC Mac and had the latest pygame available in a working state.
 
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I don’t think there is a working version of SDL 2.0 which newer versions of pygame require. That’s why I chose the NetBSD route instead. It runs on my PowerPC Mac and had the latest pygame available in a working state.
PowerPC ports sort of has a working version for Tiger - you can check the SDL for Older Mac OS X thread on this forum. I have both SDL 2.0 and Python 3.13 on Tiger thanks to PowerPC ports and Macports on a Powerbook G4. I don't have a working version of libsdl2_mixer yet, which would stop pygame from building until that is fixed or found. Pygame might also be able to build without it - I can try some things this weekend and report back if that would be helpful.

Over the years since I got my PowerBook in 2016, I have alternated between Tigerbrew and MacPorts, depending on which one supported the old hardware best. I am currently on Tigerbrew but am seeing more activity in MacPorts at the moment. One of my main use cases is running a more recent Python version including libraries like Pygame. I have not got this working at the moment. I am interested to see recommendations. Is it time to switch back to MacPorts?
Macports with the very helpful PowerPC ports overlay from barracuda156 would be the best way to go in my opinion. Python 3.13 has been done on Tiger with that setup, though it can be a pain. SDL2 has also been done, though it is even more difficult imo. If you are on Leopard, all of this is possible with less difficuly. If you want to use the 10.6.8, prebuilt binaries are available through PowerPC ports. I briefly experimented with Tigerbrew, and it seems more difficult to get a variety of up to date software with that then with PowerPC Ports/Macports.

If you need to install new version of python maybe try http://leopard.sh/ . There is available a precompiled version of python 3.11 for Tiger and Leopard ready to use...
I had completely missed that this package manager supported Tiger until you pointed that out, thank you. It could be a good place to get a modern curl for Macports on Tiger to link to without having to build gcc twice. The approach to providing precompiled binaries also gives this an advantage over Macports. If using them together, I imagine you would want to install Macports under a different prefix than opt/local to avoid potential conflicts. I might try this if I ever do a Tiger Server partition.
 
I don’t think there is a working version of SDL 2.0 which newer versions of pygame require. That’s why I chose the NetBSD route instead. It runs on my PowerPC Mac and had the latest pygame available in a working state.

Do you need a version higher than SDL upstream has? :)

At least on 10.5.8 I have SDL3 working in its latest version, not only SDL2.

P. S. There is a caveat: if your software requires joystick module, that is disabled at the moment. Presumably it can be either fixed or at least replaced with an early 2.x.x version, but I did not try either, since I got no use-case where joystick is relevant.
 
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Over the years since I got my PowerBook in 2016, I have alternated between Tigerbrew and MacPorts, depending on which one supported the old hardware best. I am currently on Tigerbrew but am seeing more activity in MacPorts at the moment. One of my main use cases is running a more recent Python version including libraries like Pygame. I have not got this working at the moment. I am interested to see recommendations. Is it time to switch back to MacPorts?

I don’t know what is the status of Python support in Tigerbrew, but probably you will have more and newer stuff via PPCPorts (see macos-powerpc.org).
Pygame port may need some adjustments, and depending on its requirements, something may needed to be done for libsdl2 as well. You can install libsdl2-cocoa and see if it works for you or not. I recall I fixed something minor for pygame build, but I have no idea whether it works in a way it should. You may open an issue, if it does not.
 
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