Cliff

MacOS question for someone who is still relatively new to MacOS.

I own an M4 Mac Mini and am curious about Brew/HomeBrew. I see a lot of mention about it and that there's so many apps available through it that aren't necessarily available in other places.

Is it worth it to install it and use it? Is it easy to install? I assume it has to be installed via command line, which likely isn't an issue for me since I did use Linux for several years back in 2002 - 2010 or so.

Suggestions or thoughts from those that use it? I'm not a power user and certainly not a developer.

#MacOS #Mac #Brew #HomeBrew #Software

Feb 22 at 3:08pmWeb
Show threadMartin MarconciniFeb 22
@cliffwade it's slow. But it works. I use it at work where I have to use MacOS.
Show threadCliffFeb 22
@gryzor Slow as in a bad thing? Are the apps that are installed using it slow as well?
Show threadJustin DerrickFeb 22
@cliffwade @gryzor Installing packages (downloading, installing requisites, etc.) can be a little pokey, but the tools themselves are plenty fast.
Show threadMartin MarconciniFeb 22

@JustinDerrick @cliffwade if you have many packages, and don't update often, it's a bit slow to fetch, but totally useable. Also quite easy to use (if you're only interested in installing and updating programs).

I never look too much into package managers and such. I just hope they do what they're supposed to do. Homebrew does its job. I know people have had cryptic ruby error messages in the past.

Show threadtw000Feb 22

@cliffwade Think of it as a package manager for MacOS and use accordingly. It's on every one of my Macs, even the old / unsupported ones where it opts to compile many things very slowly.

To extend my point, for Windows, winget is the equivalent (package manager).

Show threadCliffFeb 22
@tw000 Gotcha. Is it easy to install? I assume I just need to install it somehow from within Terminal on my MacOS and then go from there?
Show threadtw000Feb 22

@cliffwade It's just a sketchy-looking curl statement to pull down and run a shell script.

https://brew.sh/

Probably worth a read through the first time.

Homebrew

The Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux).

Homebrew
Show threadCliffFeb 22

@tw000 Been reading that for a few minutes already actually.

I see there there is a .pkg installer as well. Is it recommended or not recommended to use that and to install from command line, or will it really matter?

Show threadtw000Feb 22
@cliffwade I forget the exact nuance where the pkg makes sense, but it's there in the docs. I use the installer script on my systems. I am the only user on all my Macs.
Show threadCliffFeb 22
@tw000 I'm the only user on my Macs as well. I'm really thinking I should go with the command line install. I've actually not installed or done anything at all via the command line since switching to MacOS nearly a year ago.
Show threadJens HannemannFeb 22

@cliffwade I personally prefer #MacPorts, you may want to check that out. There’s a lot of comparisons out there to help you make an informed choice.

https://www.macports.org

The MacPorts Project -- Home

The MacPorts Project is an open-source community initiative to design an easy-to-use system for compiling, installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the Mac OS X operating system.

Show threadCliffFeb 22
@JensHannemann Thanks! I've been looking at it as well. Both seem very interesting and quite a bit different from each other.
Show threadJosh “Yoshi” VickersonFeb 22
@cliffwade Install via the command line. There are Homebrew GUI programs available for installing and managing packages. I haven't used any so I can't recommend a specific one, but there are options if you go searching!
Show threadGlenn VersweyveldFeb 22
@josh @cliffwade I’m happy using https://aerolite.dev/applite as GUI for homebrew
Applite

User-friendly GUI macOS application for Homebrew Casks

Show threadAaron  Feb 22
@cliffwade Been using Homebrew for years. Works great. It’s basically NPM but for Mac. It’s fantastic for easily installing software and trying new stuff. Easy to uninstall too if you feel that’s needed. Personally I use it for YT-dlp.
Show threadThe Peter Pan of Nerdery™Feb 22
@cliffwade It’s great, it works fine, it’s not slow and it was one of the first things I ever installed when I got the Mac. Easy to install things, easy to remove things, one command to update everything including itself, free and trusted, no reason not to install it.
Show threadThe Peter Pan of Nerdery™Feb 22

@cliffwade People are possibly saying it’s slow because if you do brew upgrade —greedy (upgrade all packages ie “casks”), if there’s a slow package in there - because it pulls it from the package’s home site - it could be slow for just that package. Brew is literally the same thing as apt-get update.

XNViewMP is slow to update for example. Not brew’s fault. The world won’t end because something took 20 seconds to update.

Show threadAaronFeb 22
@cliffwade I use it but don’t love it but it does what it does. I’ve been using it for years though. But yeah it’s stupid easy to install. It’s a one liner command
Show threadJonathan DoughtyFeb 22

@cliffwade > I'm not a power user and certainly not a developer.

Hint: Brew has a dependency on Apple’s Xcode command line tools.

If you don’t *know* of some app that you need that is only available via brew then don’t bother. In my experience most *apps* that I install via brew are also available direct from providers or via the App Store and I have some reason for installing via brew instead. The vast majority of brew formula I maintain because they provide some developer benefit to me

Show threadAnthony BakerFeb 23
@cliffwade Yes
Show threadR2Feb 23

@cliffwade Idk why bother, unless you have something specific you need it for. It’s best for installing programming languages and command line tools etc that you’d have to compile yourself otherwise. If you’re not into stuff like that, there’s a high chance many of your apps aren’t even available.

However, it’s easy to use and has a handy way of updating everything at once, so if you find enough apps on it, then sure, why not. There’s a subset of “normal apps” on it too.