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Sounds like this may be your problem: http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-users/2007-Au... Ryan Schmidt suggests: Please verify whether you have /usr/bin/gnutar. If you do not, then your Mac OS X installation is incomplete. I believe gnutar is provided by either BaseSystem.pkg or Essentials.pkg from the Mac OS X DVD, both of which are quite essential to Mac OS X's functioning.
I appreciate the help. This was a factory install of leopard, so it seems odd that it would be missing components. To google, I go.
http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki/Installing...