[Discuss-gnuradio] Volk / UHD / GR on macOS 10.12 Sierra

[Michael Dickens]

Apple released its latest OS earlier this week, now called "macOS" (was
Mac OS X): 10.12.0, codename "Sierra". The vast majority of projects
that built for 10.11 and prior continue to work with 10.12, including
Volk, UHD, and GNU Radio. In MacPorts, I committed changes to Qt4
(qt4-mac) to allow it to build on 10.5 through 10.12, so the gr-QtGui
and related Qt features all seem to work properly. All of Volk, UHD, and
GNU Radio and their dependencies all seem to build, test, and install
cleanly in Sierra. As a -notable- benefit: 10.12 also includes updated
graphics drivers that allow gr-fosphor to work out of the box again; the
graphics drivers in 10.11 were broken for some computers, and required a
non-Apple sanctioned update from NVIDIA that many people (including me)
were hesitant to try. I'm not usually a proponent of adopting a new
major Apple OS before the ".2" release, but thus far Sierra is working
very nicely and contains some useful fixes under the hood -- hence, I'm
cautiously endorsing updating if you have a Mac and want to do so.
Cheers! - MLD

ps> If you are running Mac OS X 10.11 or prior: DO NOT update to Xcode
8! Keep using Xcode 7 or prior. The best work-around if you have updated
is to reinstall Xcode 7 or prior. Xcode 8 defaults to using the build
SDK for 10.12, which is fine if you're running 10.12 but NOT fine if
you're running 10.11 or prior. There are supposedly wants to coerce
Xcode 8 into working in this situation, but the results are not
guaranteed. Hence, my advice is to just not update, or revert back if
you have already updated.