Official Installer for Unix Packages on Mac OS – Package Management

I used to use Macports because:

• It is generally more up to date
• Macports seems to be more common / popular
• Everyone else I work with uses it

When I did my own research on this topic when I got my MBP last fall, Macports seemed to be most commonly recommended for reason #1 above, hence reason #2 (and probably reason #3).

Compiling every package doesn't bother me. It is usually fast enough that it doesn't interfere with work. But you might look into port binaries if you're going to use macports.

However, I quit using Macports.

There is also a new tool in this space called Homebrew. I switched from Macports to Homebrew a few weeks ago and I'm pleased as punch. I like:

• It doesn't install duplicate libraries - it uses the system's existing libs.
• It installs in the user home directory - no sudo required and backs up to TimeMachine.

Homebrew works on Leopard or Snow Leopard, though sometimes Formulas need to be modified on Leopard.

I think all my coworkers have now switched to Homebrew. It is also gaining traction in the Ruby and Erlang (and possibly other OSS?) communities.

make uninstall often works. If your makefile doesn't support that, then your best bet might be to run make -n install (which will list the steps that make install does without actually doing them) and manually reverse its steps.

You can also look at different distros' Git packages (such as Debian's) to see what files those packages install. You might have to adjust the paths a bit for an install from source, but it should give you a pretty good idea of what files need to be deleted. (Debian, for example, splits Git between several packages, so you might need to check the file lists for each.)