The package collection, Nixpkgs, is massive and even more up-to-date than Homebrew, and nothing installed from it will break anything from MacPorts (or be affected by anything MacPorts, either). If you need something that's not packaged in MacPorts yet, consider Nix instead of Homebrew. I recommend installing Homebrew to a local prefix under your user (e.g., ~/.opt/homebrew) and using it exclusively for 'casks', but continuing to use MacPorts. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m probably the biggest Apple fan they know.
It also has the advantage that it's more likely to include trendy, new utilities than MacPorts is because it has more contributors. Update: For those joining in late 2017, Ive been hunting for a laptop with limited success.Read on for what Ive settled on, or discuss on HN. Homebrew's main functionality, on the other hand, still has all of the same problems it always has. Installing GUI apps automatically in this way isn't really package management, but it's still better than installing them manually.
The other (casks) is like Chocolatey on Windows, and downloads the installers or bundle images for GUI apps from their official websites, and then does its best to install them non-interactively for you on an ad-hoc basis.Ĭasks are worth using because they fill a gap that 'proper' package managers mostly don't. One is MacPorts but worse and with more contributors (formulae, i.e., the main part of Homebrew). Homebrew is two package management systems with one command line interface. It is popular due to its flexibility, simple to use, and crystal clear output over host command. It is a useful tool for network troubleshooting.
Most of the usual keyboard shortcuts I had in Windows now map 1:1 on my Mac. The dig command is primarily used to query DNS servers. It's a bit amazing how much easier this made everything. Control (which doesn't get used often) mapped to the Windows / Super key. When using my external mechanical keyboard, I have Command mapped to the Control key. It can be installed on Microsoft Windows as part of Cygwin.
It is installed by default on many operating systems, including Linux and Mac OS X. Still miss Windows sometimes.Īt any rate, I did make one change in MacOS which long term Mac users might find heretical. The dig command is a powerful tool for troubleshooting queries and responses received from the Domain Name Service (DNS). Spotlight does seem to work better than 10/11's built-in search. But not only is the shortcut more awkward but going to the path has a delay. Finder has a similar method using Command-Shift-G. Control-L in Explorer, type the path, and I'm there the second I hit return. Just for a simple example: I change to arbitrary folders frequently. Explorer is far better than Finder for most things, even if it's also substantially uglier. Things just pop up, switch gears, and do what you want almost instantly. There are days I miss Windows quite a bit.