Installing HomeBrew on Mac OS
The apt-like package manager on OS x
What is HomeBrew?
HomeBrew is a Terminal based package manager for Mac OS.
If you, as me, have transitioned from any of the popular Linux Distros, such as Debian or Ubuntu, this will provide an “apt-like” interface for installing packages in your Mac OS System.
You can find more information on HomeBrew in their website:
Installing HomeBrew
Within the first sections of the site, you’ll find a terminal command that will actually download the necessary installation files and execute the installation in your system.
Note: There are some prerequisites for installing HomeBrew in your Mac OS Computer.
Requirements can be found here: https://docs.brew.sh/Installation#macos-requirements. Essentially, you’ll need a base install plus the Command Line Tools (CLT) fir XCode.
- Command Line Tools (CLT) for Xcode:
xcode-select --install, developer.apple.com/downloads or Xcode 3
The terminal command looks like this:
Just copy and paste in a terminal and hit enter.
This will require you to input your admin password in order to get everything installed.
Download and Installation process may take a while, and you’ll be prompted with the following message when done.
You are done now! So you can now start installing packages using the brew command.
As any other command line utility, you may need some help to get started, so here are a couple of handy commands in the Homebrew cheatsheet.
In upcoming articles, we’ll see how we use HomeBrew to install specific packages and tools.
Hope this simple instructions helped you to get started!
Cheers!
