So with the risk of opening a whole other can of worms, I got really excited for a moment as GNU has never provided an official gcc/gfortran binary for mac, sadly it turns out that they still don’t.
The version provided in the link as another 3rd party provided version, hence technically there is no difference using the “macOS installer” from the Homebrew or MacPorts version, they could technically be provided by the same person/source.
Pros and cons are of course numerous when comparing sources. Package managers (Homebrew/MacPorts) provides the most current versions of both gcc and gfortran as these now v8.3 while the available binaries from both HPC and fxcoudert are 8.2 and regularly are maintained by more people. Obviously using the most current version can also break things as we are seeing now so using more stable and tested versions is sometimes better. Using a specific version of gcc/gfortran requires a little more effort when using MacPorts/Homebrew as these do not get priority over system compilers by default, however this is also a good thing as the odds of messing up something affecting the system is minimal. Plus you can have numerous different versions installed and switch between them, which you cannot when using most binary distributions which, at least regularly, overwrites files in /usr/local/. Uninstalling some of these binary distributions is also a real headache as there is no “uninstall” or “remove” option.
This is a really short list of my personal opinions as I have moved from the HPC Mac OS X source to FINK, to MacPorts and have now finally landed on Homebrew, all with their own pros and cons. I do regularly commit to the option I choose and hence might seem a little defensive regarding package managers, this is not my intention. I do, however, see a great value in providing working instructions for installing using different sources/options of compilers as people have different preferences. If you prefer precompiled binaries, you should be able to find help and support in compiling using these as well as if you prefer package manager and even better if there are different alternatives available as most people, like me, are creatures of comfort and might not want to switch from one alternative to another.
So this turned out to be more of a rant then I intended though I will add it to the list and I do stand by it. Meanwhile, the compilation issue with GNU compilers persists across versions, I have tried gcc6 and gcc7 and they al fail on the _Atomic issue.
I’m having issues accessing my parallells installation of macOS meaning I won’t be able to assess alternative installs at this moment. Though I will try both the binary distributions and MacPorts and see which alternatives work.
Best regards
// Gustaf
On 2 Apr 2019, at 16:20, Hai Nguyen <nhai.qn.gmail.com<mailto:nhai.qn.gmail.com>> wrote:
https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranBinaries
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Received on Wed Apr 03 2019 - 00:00:02 PDT
