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I just found out I got about 500 MB out of just one package (Qt 4) being duplicated on MacPorts. Or at least I think so. I couldn't find any hardlinks in there, and I'm wondering if I can safely delete the /opt/local/var/macports/software/qt4-mac/. I'll probably just do it and see what happens, but this whole thing also got me wondering about MacPorts...

Why did that package got duplicated in the first place? How should I manage other packages in it? I've got a lot of software in there, and I don't recall having installed that many. And why on old nabble were both guys talking about hardlinks?

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For the way MacPorts works, it might be that different packages are compiled against different versions of qt4-mac. Later during other upgrades, some inactive packages are still there after everything has been recompiled against later versions.

Trust macports a little bit before deleting anything on your own below /opt/local

Try to see if you have an inactive version of qt4-mac installed

port list inactive

I usually clean the inactive ports to make sure that there is no garbage left out:

port uninstall inactive

... also a good global clean

port -d clean all --all

In the case of qt4-mac be careful if you are compiling with the docs, that along could be 1GB

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  • Thank you for trying to help! port list inactive brings nothing, though they're all inactive as far as I've been using them this year. I've tried that cleaning too but, after hundreds lines of verbose output, it didn't seem to make much effect. qt4-mac is still duplicated in the same place and same version, as it was before. I really know almost nothing about macports, as you may have guessed, so maybe the best advice would be learning more about it... would it? I was just hoping I could get around this apparently small issue easily.
    – cregox
    Jul 24, 2011 at 23:36
  • @cawas You can use "port provides" to find out which port installed a file (not a folder, so just select a file within it)
    – SystematicFrank
    Jul 30, 2011 at 17:47
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    You should not use port list to display information about ports on your computer, only to browse available ports; particularly, port list always displays the latest version, not the installed version. Instead, use port echo, which shows the actual version and variant installed.
    – Kevin Reid
    Nov 14, 2011 at 14:17

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