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Homebrew barely works. I dread messing with it. It's not Homebrew's fault: with Macs the stars have to align to get things to work much of the time. I find that

Homebrew barely works. I dread messing with it. It's not Homebrew's fault: with Macs the stars have to align to get things to work much of the time. I find that the origin OS for most of my libraries (Linux/Debian) is much more reliable than a Mac. I had some issues switching away from a mac at first, but I got over them.

michaelvoz 10y ago
Parallel universes with opposite realities: proven!
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  parallel universes with shills on either side: TRUE!
stephenr 10y ago
The problem absolutely is Homebrew.
- raarts 10y ago
  It's better to substantiate allegations. Causes people to take you more seriously.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Homebrew is a "package manager" that has worse dependency management than a ham sandwich and a community that reacts to criticism with "don't talk to us, you're being negative".
wyager 10y ago
> Homebrew barely works. I dread messing with it. One of us must be smoking something. I've never had a more reliable/friendly package manager (among apt-get, pacman, macports, pkg_add, yum).
- aptwebapps 10y ago
  Maybe the experience depends on what packages you install?
  - danieldk 10y ago
    It is hard to say, because the grandparent says that Homebrew barely works without providing any examples of the problems they have ran into.
    - nickbauman 10y ago
      Yeah as long as you're using what everyone else is using and stay "inside the lines" it's OK. But step off into special territory, you're better off on Linux.
  - natch 10y ago
    Wild guess: people who keep Xcode and its associated command line tools up to date have smooth experiences. Those who don't, do not.
    - wyager 10y ago
      Brew recently started refusing to install anything if your xcode is out of date, and forces you to wait for a "brew update" if it hasn't updated in 24 hours. It's actually hideously user-unfriendly, but it probably saves the devs a lot of stupid github issues.
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Unless you made the mistake of upgrading to Xcode 8 while staying with El Capitan and then wondering, why nothing works.
      - natch 10y ago
        What specifically doesn't work? It's working for me but I would love to have an example of breakage to take to my IT as another reason they should allow the company machines to be updated.
yarou 10y ago
What's forcing you to use Homebrew? You could easily use pkgsrc or Nix.
fredsir 10y ago
The only time I remember having a problem with Homebrew is in the summer where I'll run some beta version of the new macOS on a testing machine while trying to use Homebrew which does not support the beta. Other than that it never fails for me, and I install a boat load of tools through Homebrew. I even install as much of my GUI tools as possible using brew cask.

michaelvoz 10y ago

Parallel universes with opposite realities: proven!

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
parallel universes with shills on either side: TRUE!

stephenr 10y ago

The problem absolutely is Homebrew.

raarts 10y ago
It's better to substantiate allegations. Causes people to take you more seriously.
- stephenr 10y ago
  Homebrew is a "package manager" that has worse dependency management than a ham sandwich and a community that reacts to criticism with "don't talk to us, you're being negative".

wyager 10y ago

> Homebrew barely works. I dread messing with it. One of us must be smoking something. I've never had a more reliable/friendly package manager (among apt-get, pacman, macports, pkg_add, yum).

aptwebapps 10y ago
Maybe the experience depends on what packages you install?
- danieldk 10y ago
  It is hard to say, because the grandparent says that Homebrew barely works without providing any examples of the problems they have ran into.
  - nickbauman 10y ago
    Yeah as long as you're using what everyone else is using and stay "inside the lines" it's OK. But step off into special territory, you're better off on Linux.
- natch 10y ago
  Wild guess: people who keep Xcode and its associated command line tools up to date have smooth experiences. Those who don't, do not.
  - wyager 10y ago
    Brew recently started refusing to install anything if your xcode is out of date, and forces you to wait for a "brew update" if it hasn't updated in 24 hours. It's actually hideously user-unfriendly, but it probably saves the devs a lot of stupid github issues.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    Unless you made the mistake of upgrading to Xcode 8 while staying with El Capitan and then wondering, why nothing works.
    - natch 10y ago
      What specifically doesn't work? It's working for me but I would love to have an example of breakage to take to my IT as another reason they should allow the company machines to be updated.

yarou 10y ago

What's forcing you to use Homebrew? You could easily use pkgsrc or Nix.

fredsir 10y ago

The only time I remember having a problem with Homebrew is in the summer where I'll run some beta version of the new macOS on a testing machine while trying to use Homebrew which does not support the beta. Other than that it never fails for me, and I install a boat load of tools through Homebrew. I even install as much of my GUI tools as possible using brew cask.