Fiddling with Linux applications on macOS

Topics/tags: Rants, technical, macOS, Linux, rambly

I’ve been using Unix workstations since about 1985. If I recall correctly, my first Unix systems were a Pyramid [1] running some custom version of Unix and some form of VAX running BSD Unix, both under the auspices of the CS Department at The University of Chicago [2].

I’ve been using Macs for about as long. Michelle and my first Mac was a 512Ke [3].

So when Apple decided to rewrite the Macintosh operating system to use a *nix [4] core, I was overjoyed. I expected to get the consistent Macintosh UI [5] along with a terminal that I could use when I wanted the more efficient command line. And, in general, that’s proven true.

But there are times that I want to use popular Linux programs that don’t necessarily come native on my Mac. Sometimes that works well; sometimes it doesn’t. This musing is a story about one of the times things went less well.

One of my favorite *nix applications is ImageMagick. I use it mostly for small tasks on the command line, such as resizing images or converting from one file format to another.

The other day, I needed to resize an image. I thought I had ImageMagick installed on my Mac, but it seemed that I did not. So I went to look for an installer. The first place I found suggested that their installers did not work for El Capitan or Sierra. Since I still run Sierra [6], I was out of luck. Of course, upgrading would not help; that site only supports up to 10.10 (whatever that was).

So I employed the other recommended strategy, installing with MacPorts. Conceptually, MacPorts is wonderful. It provides a simple, command-line tool for installing and updating a wide variety of *nix software. And, theoretically, the process is simple. I should be able to type

sudo port install ImageMagick

and everything is supposed to go fine. But MacPorts doesn’t like the fact that I’ve only installed part of Xcode [7]. That’s not supposed to be an obstacle, but it sometimes is. Since I’m running an older version of macOS, it’s also a bit of a pain to find and download the correct version of Xcode [8]. I crossed my fingers that it was not necessary.

Installing ImageMagick also requires the installation of a bunch of other software. I didn’t keep track of it all. I’ll note that atlas took perhaps the most time to install. Unfortunately, not all of it installed successfully. Since I know a little bit about building software, I don’t generally quit when that happens. I spent a bit uninstalling and then reinstalling the dependencies and doing a Web search on error messages. Eventually, it looked like I had succeeded in installing all of the necessary parts. I went to convert the file that started the whole process and, amazingly enough, it worked.

Then I tried to run Scribble, the markup language I’m using for the textbook [9]. And, well, I got ugly error messages. I was able to read them and determine that it was something to do with LaTeX. I hadn’t changed LaTeX, so I was confused. After some time puzzling, I realized that the version of LaTeX I was using had changed. I had been using the version that comes with MacTeX. For some reason, another version got installed under the MacPorts file hierarchy. And that version wasn’t working. I think resetting my path corrected the problem.

But playing with these issues made me realize that (a) my installation of MacTex is two years out of date and (b) the latest version of ImageMagick is version 7.0.9, while MacPorts only supports 6.9.9. On to more upgrades.

MacTeX is pretty straightforward. I need to download a new installer (3.4 GB) and run it (another 6 GB). It takes about three minutes on my Mac [10]. At some point soon, I should probably uninstall the old version. And I should keep my eye out for the next version. Somewhere in the middle, I should consider whether I want to use TeX Live to update the associated files.

It turns out that there’s a download of ImageMagick 7 for macOS. How did I miss that? Let’s see. I downloaded the tarball, unpacked it, moved it to my /Applications folder, and updated my .bash_profile file. That’s much simpler than using MacPorts.

I’m not sure that I want two versions of ImageMagick installed [11]. I know that I don’t want three versions of the TeX universe installed [12]. And MacPorts is taking about 8 GB on this system, compared to 3.2 GB on my other system, which also has the old ImageMagick installed [14]. I bet it’s the TeX stuff. But there’s probably other cruft, too. I’m tempted to nuke the whole thing. And then there’s the question of whether to replicate everything on the other Mac.

Maybe it’s time to make a list of what I like installed and to keep it up to date [15].

One way I’ll figure out what I need or want is to clear everything out and start again. That’s also an appropriate, if somewhat excessive, way to get rid of cruft. But I’ll make a list, just in case.

$ port list installed > macports-installed.txt

Now I’ll clean out the MacPorts stuff. Here’s the first command that they suggest.

$ sudo port -fp uninstall installed

It’s a bit scary that I get error messages from that process, such as Warning: All compilers are either blacklisted or unavailable; defaulting to first fallback option. I’m also puzzled that there’s still about 1 GB in use in /opt/local after that command. Ah! It’s all in /opt/local/var/macports. Okay, I’m going to follow the suggestion to nuke /opt/local too.

$ sudo rm -rf /opt/local

As long as I’m doing that, I should also get rid of the applications in /Applications/MacPorts [16]. Now, let’s reinstall MacPorts and ImageMagick. I wonder how long it takes to install ImageMagick and all of its dependencies from scratch? Let’s see [17].

$ time sudo port install ImageMagick

Much faster this time; only eight minutes. And it didn’t install atlas. I wonder what was going on last time. In addition, at present, it only occupies have 1 GB in /opt/local. I’m a bit worried about what’s gone, but not enough to think more about it too much [18].

Isn’t system administration fun?

[1] The Pyramid’s tendency to crash under high loads led me to make it a policy to start homework assignments the day after they were due; that way, I was the only one working on the system, and it was less likely to crash and destroy my work. More details on my experiences with the Pyramid, including its poorly-designed Pascal compiler and my exposure to Gosling Emacs, may follow in subsequent musings. If you want me to write more, let me know.

[2] At some point, I became one of the grad student sysadmins for the department’s Unix systems. I forget what server we were running then.

[3] I don’t remember what happened to it. The MacPlus we purchased next lives in the CS Museum outside of my lab, still with the old Gargoyle sign on it that I claimed after the UofC CS department discarded it.

[4] I tend to use *nix to refer to Unix, Linux, BSD, and the other various variants of Unix out there.

[5] I still have the classic Macintosh User Interface Guidelines somewhere in my lab.

[6] I’m not alone in my reluctance to upgrade. My department chair also runs Sierra.

[7] I don’t use Xcode, so I install only the command-line tools.

[8] Xcode 10 is the latest version. Xcode 8.3 or so seems to be the last one that works under Sierra.

[9] I have planned a musing on choosing Scribble. I may also end up musing (well, ranting) about my subsequent experiences with Scribble.

[10] It said it would take ten minutes, but it was much faster.

[11] Upon further reflection, until I have spent some time with the new ImageMagick, I’m probably best off making sure I still have the old one installed, too.

[12] I have MacTeX 2016, MacTeX 2018, and the strange TeX installation in my MacPorts file system.

[14] That’s why I thought I had ImageMagick installed.

[15] I went to create a new repository for that list on GitHub. GitHub suggested I call it reimagined-memory. How’s that for serendipity?

[16] In doing so, I realized that I still have MacPython 2.5 in my Applications directory. It dates from 2010, and I haven’t used it in years.

[17] No, I will not list all of the output from that port command. However, you may be interested in the list of dependencies that it says need to be installed: autoconf automake bzip2 db48 djvulibre expat fftw-3 fontconfig freetype gdbm gettext ghostscript giflib ilmbase jasper jbig2dec jbigkit jpeg lcms2 libedit libffi libiconv libidn libpaper libpng libraw libtool libxml2 ncurses openexr openjpeg openssl ossp-uuid perl5 perl5.26 pkgconfig python27 python2_select python_select readline sqlite3 tiff urw-fonts webp xorg-libX11 xorg-libXau xorg-libXdmcp xorg-libXext xorg-libXt xorg-libice xorg-libpthread-stubs xorg-libsm xorg-libxcb xorg-xcb-proto xorg-xorgproto xz zlib. My spellcheckers did not enjoy that list.

[18] I couldn’t resist taking a quick look. Here are some things that I appear to be missing.

• GraphicsMagick, an alternative to ImageMagick
• atlas, some linear algebra libraries
• bison, everyone’s favorite Yacc alternative
• docbook-xml-4.5, left over from the days in which I wrote shared course materials in DocBook
• SuiteSparse, a suite of sparse matrix algorithms

I wonder when I was doing linear algebra on my computer. Oh well. I don’t need those packages right now. I also don’t need bison and can easily install it when I do.

I’m also missing the TeX stuff that I wanted to delete and what appears to be a bunch of C compilers. Those I can do without.

I’m reinstalling GraphicsMagick and DocBook. I’ll see what else I miss over the coming weeks and, as I do, I’ll try to remember my list of *nix software.

Version 1.0 of 2018-10-24.