FET executable for Mac OS X, by Darren McDonald

Liviu Lalescu · February 03, 2026, 06:39:30 PM

Thank you, as well! You are welcome!

I have put FET-7.7.0 on https://lalescu.org/macos/ , could you please confirm it is problematic? I think it is CMake... I don't know how to fix this. Maybe reverting the compilation of the macOS version to QMake? (but I don't like the idea!)

Please let me know when you get FET-7.7.0 for macOS from the above link, so I can remove it!

NYC FET · February 04, 2026, 04:48:12 PM

Same error with 7.7.0

Liviu Lalescu · February 04, 2026, 05:06:47 PM

Thank you, NYC FET! So, it is because of the new compilation with CMake, introduced in FET-7.7.0. I don't know what to do next.

gradgrind · February 05, 2026, 04:23:57 AM

I don't know anything about macOS, but a quick search suggested that you might need to set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET appropriately.

maxi_mus · February 06, 2026, 09:32:31 PM

Is it possible to download old versions of FET for Mac somewhere?

Liviu Lalescu · February 07, 2026, 06:44:28 AM

I have on my hard disk the macOS versions from the previous years. If you want, I could temporarily make some of them available for you; let me know!

Darren McDonald · February 09, 2026, 05:18:17 PM

Quote from: gradgrind on February 05, 2026, 04:23:57 AMI don't know anything about macOS, but a quick search suggested that you might need to set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET appropriately.

I suspect this is it, and I've set it to 13 in the latest FET version (7.7.5). I don't want to rule anything out unnecessarily, but I got some warnings when compiling for versions below 13.0. Hope this helps!

Liviu Lalescu · February 09, 2026, 05:21:36 PM

Thank you, gradgrind, and Darren!

Darren, could you please send me updated instructions for compiling for macOS, so that I could add them to the future FET README? The best would be if you sent me an updated FET-7.7.5 README file (I will diff and check it).

Darren McDonald · February 09, 2026, 05:56:43 PM

Coming soon! I can get to this next week if there's no rush. (This week I've got lots of marking, then grade reports to finish!)

Liviu Lalescu · February 09, 2026, 06:00:13 PM

Thank you! Please take your time on the school work!

Liviu Lalescu · February 12, 2026, 07:02:26 AM

Hello, Darren,

I might be preparing a new FET release, tomorrow or later. I added a line in the README:

"Note for macOS: You might need to set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET appropriately."

Maybe there is no big need of more details.

I am a bit rushing with the FET release, fixing some things.

I am sorry to rush things...

Darren McDonald · February 12, 2026, 05:24:03 PM

Hi Liviu,

I suspect there's no need to add such a line, since if someone is compiling FET for their own use only, then the default value is selected based on the platform they're using to compile. (Similarly, I set CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES to x86_64;arm64 so that we get a "universal" binary that runs on both Intel and Arm processors, but otherwise this too would, by default, be set to the architecture of the machine used for compilation.)

Liviu Lalescu · February 12, 2026, 05:31:41 PM

Hi, Darren,

Maybe we could add a side note that to make a universal macOS package the user could add these two defines (CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES to x86_64;arm64 and set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET appropriately).

But I will listen to your advice if you will advise me not to add any of these two variables help/notes. You know better.

Darren McDonald · February 12, 2026, 05:39:26 PM

Hi Liviu,

I always assume anyone else compiling FET probably knows more about compiling software than I do, so I don't think I'm the best person to decide!

Liviu Lalescu · February 12, 2026, 05:43:39 PM

Hi, Darren,

We could then add a side note about these two variables. It does not hurt.