4 ms·

For those of us who are picking up M1 MacBooks as first time Mac users, is there some kind of Mac crash course for devs? What apps are useful, what familiar too

For those of us who are picking up M1 MacBooks as first time Mac users, is there some kind of Mac crash course for devs? What apps are useful, what familiar tools from Linux can we use, etc? I'm aware of Dash, which makes me suspect there are a bunch of other Mac-exclusive tools which will be useful.

kolinko 6y ago
Most linux terminal stuff works easily on mac - all the vims, emacs and so on. For FTP, there is Transmit by Panic, which is quite neat. For web browsing, Big Sur's Safari finally works well (it's the first time I managed to do a switch from Chrome, after multiple tries). Time Machine backup is also awesome - I couldn't find anything working just as well for other OSs. There are also some neat system-wide tricks you may like: - you can set up a hot-corner in preferences to show the desktop. I have mine in bottom-right, that way if I want to move sth in and out of desktop, I grab it, do the hot-corner, and drop. - most file-editing apps have an icon next to a file-name in the window bar. you can drag&drop that icon to copy file etc. if you command-click the icon, the whole path to the file get revealed - you can drag & drop files to every open file dialog in the system. super-handy - home/end/pgup/pgdown keys are missing on the keyboard, but Emacs shortcuts work throught the whole system, e.g. Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E = home/end in every text dialog - command+option+shift+v = paste without style, if you want to paste something into a wysiwyg text editor as a plain text - command+shift+4 - screenshot of a part of the screen. also can serve as a pixel ruler, since it shows how many pixels you are grabbing - Cmd+Up/Cmd+Down - navigate within the filesystem In general, for me as a dev - the best thing about MacOS is how much of the stuff is built-in, and a ton of system features that are consistent through all the apps. That, and a linux-style console/filesystem :)
bysja 6y ago
I found this guide to be helpful: https://sourabhbajaj.com/mac-setup/ https://sourabhbajaj.com/mac-setup/
FeloniousHam 6y ago
Better Touch Tool [1] is a must have for customizing the touchpad and keyboard. I like Karabiner to convert the Caps Lock into a new meta key [2]. [1] https://folivora.ai https://folivora.ai [2] https://www.howtogeek.com/409904/how-to-turn-your-mac’s-caps-lock-into-an-extra-modifier-key/ https://www.howtogeek.com/409904/how-to-turn-your-mac’s-caps...
thoughtsimple 6y ago
It's interesting that right now, MacPorts is further along the M1/Apple Silicon porting process than Homebrew. I think this is because Homebrew tries to do everything from a binary repository and MacPorts downloads source, patches it and builds it. Since a lot of the open source repositories have Apple/Darwin AArch64 ports now, it seems to work in most cases. https://www.macports.org https://www.macports.org https://brew.sh https://brew.sh

kolinko 6y ago

Most linux terminal stuff works easily on mac - all the vims, emacs and so on. For FTP, there is Transmit by Panic, which is quite neat. For web browsing, Big Sur's Safari finally works well (it's the first time I managed to do a switch from Chrome, after multiple tries). Time Machine backup is also awesome - I couldn't find anything working just as well for other OSs. There are also some neat system-wide tricks you may like: - you can set up a hot-corner in preferences to show the desktop. I have mine in bottom-right, that way if I want to move sth in and out of desktop, I grab it, do the hot-corner, and drop. - most file-editing apps have an icon next to a file-name in the window bar. you can drag&drop that icon to copy file etc. if you command-click the icon, the whole path to the file get revealed - you can drag & drop files to every open file dialog in the system. super-handy - home/end/pgup/pgdown keys are missing on the keyboard, but Emacs shortcuts work throught the whole system, e.g. Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E = home/end in every text dialog - command+option+shift+v = paste without style, if you want to paste something into a wysiwyg text editor as a plain text - command+shift+4 - screenshot of a part of the screen. also can serve as a pixel ruler, since it shows how many pixels you are grabbing - Cmd+Up/Cmd+Down - navigate within the filesystem In general, for me as a dev - the best thing about MacOS is how much of the stuff is built-in, and a ton of system features that are consistent through all the apps. That, and a linux-style console/filesystem :)

bysja 6y ago

I found this guide to be helpful: https://sourabhbajaj.com/mac-setup/ https://sourabhbajaj.com/mac-setup/

FeloniousHam 6y ago

Better Touch Tool [1] is a must have for customizing the touchpad and keyboard. I like Karabiner to convert the Caps Lock into a new meta key [2]. [1] https://folivora.ai https://folivora.ai [2] https://www.howtogeek.com/409904/how-to-turn-your-mac’s-caps-lock-into-an-extra-modifier-key/ https://www.howtogeek.com/409904/how-to-turn-your-mac’s-caps...

thoughtsimple 6y ago

It's interesting that right now, MacPorts is further along the M1/Apple Silicon porting process than Homebrew. I think this is because Homebrew tries to do everything from a binary repository and MacPorts downloads source, patches it and builds it. Since a lot of the open source repositories have Apple/Darwin AArch64 ports now, it seems to work in most cases. https://www.macports.org https://www.macports.org https://brew.sh https://brew.sh