brew install gcc too time consuming

Question

I'm doing a clean install of Mavericks, and accidentally did

brew install gcc

which is taking over half an hour, maybe more. Should I terminate it? I know now that I should have installed a specific gcc (maybe gcc48) but it's too late and my macbook air is breathing hard.

Currently done downloading all 5 dependencies, but stuck on the "Installing gcc" part. It's downloaded a gcc-4.9.1.tar.bz2, configured and built it, and is stuck on making the bootstrap.

Any advice is appreciated.

This was good advice I saw too late: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/38222/how-do-i-install-gcc-via-homebrew

Asked here first: https://superuser.com/questions/788256/brew-install-gcc-mac-os-10-9-mavericks

Answer 1

You do need gcc installed to get gfortran, and you do need a fortran compiler for scipy. Homebrew will install a "bottled" (i.e., precompiled) version of the gcc package, which is very fast, if you have the Xcode Command Line Tools installed. These are separate from XCode proper. You can install them with xcode-select --install.

There is no particular need to install a particular version of gcc (and I think those may not be bottled, so they will be equally slow).

In general, interrupting Homebrew with Ctrl+C is safe and Homebrew will automatically recover.

You may be interested in the homebrew-python tap.