7 ms·

New MacBook Setup

48 points by jgalvez 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
For some things (side dock/toolbar) a rationale would help. Advice on casks in Homebrew and things which unpack an app. Why not brew? Why by hand? Pip is a nightmare but so are all the virtualise methods P12 and SSH identity and key chains. Launchctl sometimes. Xquartz is a decision point. Little snitch asap Avoiding things like Cisco VPN and jamf may mean changing employer.
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  The screen is wide, so bottom placement doesn’t make sense. Of course you want magnification. Unless you put on a gray tie too.
- wyclif 2y ago
  Isn't it better to use Homebrew on a package-by-package basis? Some packages are not current.
jjuliano 2y ago
install homebrew first, then install the rest using homebrew.
- mauricekleine 2y ago
  This is the way
- radicality 2y ago
  Keep a Brewfile around of the apps you always want installed, and then it’s just a simple one-liner to install everything from the Brewfile! There’s even an option to add into the Brewfile apps from official apple App Store (like Xcode etc).
  - jgalvez 2y ago
    Good to know, will definitely look into that.
0x2a 2y ago
Proton Drive, Nextcloud, or iCloud Drive (all E2EE cloud storage solutions) seem like better choices than Dropbox if you're concerned enough about privacy to be using Cryptomator and Mullvad.
whatever1 2y ago
I find hilarious the fact that we need to buy & install a windowing tool because the native OS window system has been broken for the past 40 years. Can't they just copy what windows and linux are doing?
- 0x2a 2y ago
  They copied it a little bit, but it's very mouse oriented (option-click the green zoom button to snap windows to left/right). Another option for this is Hammerspoon, e.g.: https://github.com/scottwhudson/Lunette https://github.com/scottwhudson/Lunette
  - jwells89 2y ago
    > They copied it a little bit, but it's very mouse oriented (option-click the green zoom button to snap windows to left/right). Moom, which is the tool I prefer, similarly shows a popover when hovering over the green button. Personally I prefer this sort of approach and wish it could be replicated on other OSes. The Aero Snap way of doing things with the noisy “should I snap here” animations are annoying and too easy to accidentally trigger.
- wyclif 2y ago
  I tend to agree that the functionality you see in Rectangle or Magnet should be native. Window placement shouldn't be a third party app. But whenever I've asked people at Apple about this, the response has been "Well, Apple is historically just very opinionated about window placement and settings." The overall vibe was "Apple knows best."
  - thefz 2y ago
    You are using it wrong. See, in the intended setup, windows simply don't open. You don't even need a computer, just wire Apple some thousands regularly.
  - thiht 2y ago
    Being opinionated is good, but at some point you have to realize when you went the wrong path. Window management on macOS is terrible, period. This isn't just force of habit or "just another way to do", it sucks. Even command+tab is terrible, it doesn't even browse all the open windows but the open app, which is a completely irrelevant distinction, I have to install AltTab because of this.
jotkaPL 2y ago
why is this on HN? pretty lame setup, tbh.
- throwaway4good 2y ago
  because we really love discussing this stuff!
cesarvarela 2y ago
Enable three finger drag.
- tstrimple 2y ago
  Most annoying change Apple made was hiding this in the accessibility menu. Should be default behavior. It's one of the major reasons I adore the Mac Book touch-pad. On Windows I'd have to do this weird multi-tap and hold and hope I could drag far enough or repeat the gesture. Three finger drag is just second nature to me now.
jjuliano 2y ago
there should be oh-my-zsh in there.
jjuliano 2y ago
I love this opinionated setup, very insightful. For example, I didn't knew anything about Mullvad, or a combination of fonts that looks good. However, I just used emacs, firefox, spotify and inkscape, and that's just it.
mraza007 2y ago
Why use sublime over vscode Just curious to know
- jgalvez 2y ago
  It's very lightweight in comparison + I'm so used to it that I can't be bothered to switch. I tried Cursor the other day.
  - mraza007 2y ago
    What extensions do you use, I heard they don’t have great extensions support is that true
  - Axsuul 2y ago
    How was Cursor vs. Sublime?
- infinityplus1 2y ago
  Sublime is way faster for opening large files.
throwaway4good 2y ago
Am I the only one who prefers macports over homework? And Safari over Chrome? And the default terminal.
- microflash 2y ago
  I use the default terminal as well. The only thing I miss is right click to paste.
- ilikehurdles 2y ago
  I vastly prefer safari followed by firefox when a site doesn’t work right.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Safari, Terminal.app, Homebrew here. I’m on Homebrew because it hasn’t given me any trouble in years, has an outstanding package library, and because back when I first tried Macports in like 2012 it liked to break itself every few months while doing very normal things, so I tried Homebrew and never looked back.
  - throwaway4good 2y ago
    I had a traumatic experience with homebrew in the early days where it killed my system to the point where I had to do a fresh OS install. Also I find their beer-making jargon annoying.
- infinityplus1 2y ago
  I tried to switch to Safari and used it regularly for a few weeks on my M1 air. Every so often, web sites would simply stop opening after using Safari for a few hours and only a restart of Safari would fix it. I didn't have any patience to file a bug report. So I just switched back to Firefox.
- adarsh_p 2y ago
  You're not the only one. I vastly prefer MacPorts.
- 2y ago
bouke 2y ago
My setup would take weeks to reproduce, I think. So many small tweaks, configuration and extensions that I have accrued over the years. I would dread starting over, which is why I’m very happy with Migration Assistant that helped me migrate to various new machines over 10+ years.
- dheera 2y ago
  I use Ubuntu Linux for my personal machines, and my entire setup can be reproduced in a fully automated fashion with a script that I maintain, so I can wipe and start fresh pretty much any day I feel like, go have lunch, and come back to a desktop with all my customizations, all the way down to the order in which I have my pinned icons. It's kind of amusing that Mac users have to go through so many GUI hoops to configure the system, yet for some reason the vast majority of devs seem to still prefer Macs (?)
  - runjake 2y ago
    Mac users don’t have to. My many Mac settings are fully configurable with a shell script. Likewise, you can do everything mentioned in this post in a shell script. And us devs who prefer Macs like the stability and not needing to fiddle with stuff all the time and just want to get work done. I also always maintain a couple Linux desktops and while it’s great, it’s always been flakier than macOS. We find that macOS has more polish. Linux is a much better OS than Darwin though. FWIW, I started using Linux back in 1992 in its pre-1.0 days, long before I ever used the current thing called macOS ,or MS-DOS/Windows, for that matter.
  - namdnay 2y ago
    They don’t have to, everything can be done by CLI if you’re feeling particularly nerdy
  - Toutouxc 2y ago
    I’m a Mac user of 10 years now and the total amount of times I’ve had to wipe and start fresh is exactly zero. So while you’re right about macOS taking some time to set up, it also doesn’t really matter [to me at least].
ilikehurdles 2y ago
Dock on the right is better as it’s more out of the way of buttons you’ll use (left side menus, window buttons) so you won’t accidentally unhide it. Also I could never get behind magnification, just makes it harder to predict where things are, but I almost never use the dock anyway.
- whenlambo 2y ago
  scrollbars
  - ilikehurdles 2y ago
    Rarely used with a mac trackpad
lawgimenez 2y ago
Don’t download Xcode using the App Store.
- phantomathkg 2y ago
  curious. why?
  - benterix 2y ago
    I don't know about the reasons of the parent but in my case after some time I was unable to upgrade Xcode on a new MBP 2019 with 128 GB even though it was the only app installed! It was about disk space management when installing via the App Store (not to mention growing space requirements). Downloading it manually solved the problem.
  - lawgimenez 2y ago
    Either it gets stuck with the update or won’t install at all.
- kcartlidge 2y ago
  I don't use Xcode itself, but do use the Xcode command line tools. I've found the simplest way to install them on a new machine is to open a terminal, try and run `git` (which isn't yet installed), and then you're automatically prompted to install the Xcode command line tools (only) and taken through it.
ladberg 2y ago
I have a similar thing here, mostly just for System Preferences stuff and other Apple app settings: https://gist.github.com/leoadberg/f889f49b4c33d967d7f5c9101a5503f7 https://gist.github.com/leoadberg/f889f49b4c33d967d7f5c9101a... Would recommend stealing parts of it! I feel like the default state of macOS can be pretty unusable at times.
- 0x2a 2y ago
  FWIW, most of the reddit self-promo filters should be addressed by the EasyList and AdGuard annoyances lists. If not, consider submitting an issue (they're very responsive): https://adguard.com/kb/guides/report-website/ https://adguard.com/kb/guides/report-website/ https://reports.adguard.com/en/new_issue.html https://reports.adguard.com/en/new_issue.html
matricaria 2y ago
Why don’t you use TimeMachine?
stpn 2y ago
One cute trick I've found is that you can install mas[0] (mac app store cli) and then have mas install things from the app store for you[1]. also, at least some system prefs can be set via the defaults util[2]. [0]: https://github.com/mas-cli/mas https://github.com/mas-cli/mas [1]: https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L91-L94 https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L... [2]: https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L22-L39 https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L...
mattacular 2y ago
Other than installing programs, most of this stuff can be automated by writing a shell script. For example: ``` # Remove the auto-hiding Dock delay defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0 # Remove the animation when hiding/showing the Dock defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0 # Automatically hide and show the Dock defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true ``` More here: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos It's kind of old but most of them should still work.
- dschuessler 2y ago
  You should be able to automate installing programs with homebrew.[0] [0]: https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/
- thiht 2y ago
  I highly recommend https://macos-defaults.com/ https://macos-defaults.com/ for a list of useful `defaults` commands. I automated almost all my macOS settings thanks to it. It's not exhaustive but gives a few hints to help you find the settings relevant to you.
tengbretson 2y ago
Enabling 3 finger mouse dragging is my favorite hidden tweak. Its in accessibility settings rather than the regular trackpad settings for some reason
- archagon 2y ago
  Another hidden tweak (that unfortunately interferes with yours): "Swipe between pages" set to "Swipe with Three Fingers." No more animation when navigating back/forward in Safari, and it works in more places to boot, e.g. Finder and Xcode Documentation. (This is because it uses an entirely different code path for navigation. Some more context under "Technical Notes": https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net)
from-nibly 2y ago
Not on a Mac but I use nix and home-manager. Not sure if it can do everything on a Mac but all my computers programs stay in sync with 1 git repo.
pebblesun 2y ago
Open Safari -> Install Chrome -> Open Chrome. Lol
- benterix 2y ago
  You probably meant install Firefox. I'm not sure why anyone here would voluntarily participate in building Google's empire other than work-related requirements.
moribvndvs 2y ago
I too had a manual checklist like the author and dragged my feet on a proper solution. Now I have a dotfiles repo with a script that installs homebrew, installs everything in a brewfile, then uses chezmoi to do all my system and shell customization. I’ll eventually get it to the point where I can copy and decrypt secrets, RSA keys, and the likes, as well as support multiple uses (work vs personal) and OSes. The benefit to this is less about new system setup (I don’t buy a new laptop every time the battery goes) and more about synchronizing my settings across machines.
irusensei 2y ago
I use nix-Darwin with combination with some other nix projects. The only beef is that it really doesn’t like updating casks.
tbeseda 2y ago
I'd use mise [0] over nvm these days. [0] https://mise.jdx.dev/ https://mise.jdx.dev/
egamirorrim 2y ago
I thought docker didn't work properly on Mac? If it does, why am I still using Colima?

48 points by jgalvez 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

For some things (side dock/toolbar) a rationale would help. Advice on casks in Homebrew and things which unpack an app. Why not brew? Why by hand? Pip is a nightmare but so are all the virtualise methods P12 and SSH identity and key chains. Launchctl sometimes. Xquartz is a decision point. Little snitch asap Avoiding things like Cisco VPN and jamf may mean changing employer.

wodenokoto 2y ago
The screen is wide, so bottom placement doesn’t make sense. Of course you want magnification. Unless you put on a gray tie too.
wyclif 2y ago
Isn't it better to use Homebrew on a package-by-package basis? Some packages are not current.

jjuliano 2y ago

install homebrew first, then install the rest using homebrew.

mauricekleine 2y ago
This is the way
radicality 2y ago
Keep a Brewfile around of the apps you always want installed, and then it’s just a simple one-liner to install everything from the Brewfile! There’s even an option to add into the Brewfile apps from official apple App Store (like Xcode etc).
- jgalvez 2y ago
  Good to know, will definitely look into that.

0x2a 2y ago

Proton Drive, Nextcloud, or iCloud Drive (all E2EE cloud storage solutions) seem like better choices than Dropbox if you're concerned enough about privacy to be using Cryptomator and Mullvad.

whatever1 2y ago

I find hilarious the fact that we need to buy & install a windowing tool because the native OS window system has been broken for the past 40 years. Can't they just copy what windows and linux are doing?

0x2a 2y ago
They copied it a little bit, but it's very mouse oriented (option-click the green zoom button to snap windows to left/right). Another option for this is Hammerspoon, e.g.: https://github.com/scottwhudson/Lunette https://github.com/scottwhudson/Lunette
- jwells89 2y ago
  > They copied it a little bit, but it's very mouse oriented (option-click the green zoom button to snap windows to left/right). Moom, which is the tool I prefer, similarly shows a popover when hovering over the green button. Personally I prefer this sort of approach and wish it could be replicated on other OSes. The Aero Snap way of doing things with the noisy “should I snap here” animations are annoying and too easy to accidentally trigger.
wyclif 2y ago
I tend to agree that the functionality you see in Rectangle or Magnet should be native. Window placement shouldn't be a third party app. But whenever I've asked people at Apple about this, the response has been "Well, Apple is historically just very opinionated about window placement and settings." The overall vibe was "Apple knows best."
- thefz 2y ago
  You are using it wrong. See, in the intended setup, windows simply don't open. You don't even need a computer, just wire Apple some thousands regularly.
- thiht 2y ago
  Being opinionated is good, but at some point you have to realize when you went the wrong path. Window management on macOS is terrible, period. This isn't just force of habit or "just another way to do", it sucks. Even command+tab is terrible, it doesn't even browse all the open windows but the open app, which is a completely irrelevant distinction, I have to install AltTab because of this.

jotkaPL 2y ago

why is this on HN? pretty lame setup, tbh.

throwaway4good 2y ago
because we really love discussing this stuff!

cesarvarela 2y ago

Enable three finger drag.

tstrimple 2y ago
Most annoying change Apple made was hiding this in the accessibility menu. Should be default behavior. It's one of the major reasons I adore the Mac Book touch-pad. On Windows I'd have to do this weird multi-tap and hold and hope I could drag far enough or repeat the gesture. Three finger drag is just second nature to me now.

jjuliano 2y ago

there should be oh-my-zsh in there.

jjuliano 2y ago

I love this opinionated setup, very insightful. For example, I didn't knew anything about Mullvad, or a combination of fonts that looks good. However, I just used emacs, firefox, spotify and inkscape, and that's just it.

mraza007 2y ago

Why use sublime over vscode Just curious to know

jgalvez 2y ago
It's very lightweight in comparison + I'm so used to it that I can't be bothered to switch. I tried Cursor the other day.
- mraza007 2y ago
  What extensions do you use, I heard they don’t have great extensions support is that true
- Axsuul 2y ago
  How was Cursor vs. Sublime?
infinityplus1 2y ago
Sublime is way faster for opening large files.

throwaway4good 2y ago

Am I the only one who prefers macports over homework? And Safari over Chrome? And the default terminal.

microflash 2y ago
I use the default terminal as well. The only thing I miss is right click to paste.
ilikehurdles 2y ago
I vastly prefer safari followed by firefox when a site doesn’t work right.
vundercind 2y ago
Safari, Terminal.app, Homebrew here. I’m on Homebrew because it hasn’t given me any trouble in years, has an outstanding package library, and because back when I first tried Macports in like 2012 it liked to break itself every few months while doing very normal things, so I tried Homebrew and never looked back.
- throwaway4good 2y ago
  I had a traumatic experience with homebrew in the early days where it killed my system to the point where I had to do a fresh OS install. Also I find their beer-making jargon annoying.
infinityplus1 2y ago
I tried to switch to Safari and used it regularly for a few weeks on my M1 air. Every so often, web sites would simply stop opening after using Safari for a few hours and only a restart of Safari would fix it. I didn't have any patience to file a bug report. So I just switched back to Firefox.
adarsh_p 2y ago
You're not the only one. I vastly prefer MacPorts.
2y ago

bouke 2y ago

My setup would take weeks to reproduce, I think. So many small tweaks, configuration and extensions that I have accrued over the years. I would dread starting over, which is why I’m very happy with Migration Assistant that helped me migrate to various new machines over 10+ years.

dheera 2y ago
I use Ubuntu Linux for my personal machines, and my entire setup can be reproduced in a fully automated fashion with a script that I maintain, so I can wipe and start fresh pretty much any day I feel like, go have lunch, and come back to a desktop with all my customizations, all the way down to the order in which I have my pinned icons. It's kind of amusing that Mac users have to go through so many GUI hoops to configure the system, yet for some reason the vast majority of devs seem to still prefer Macs (?)
- runjake 2y ago
  Mac users don’t have to. My many Mac settings are fully configurable with a shell script. Likewise, you can do everything mentioned in this post in a shell script. And us devs who prefer Macs like the stability and not needing to fiddle with stuff all the time and just want to get work done. I also always maintain a couple Linux desktops and while it’s great, it’s always been flakier than macOS. We find that macOS has more polish. Linux is a much better OS than Darwin though. FWIW, I started using Linux back in 1992 in its pre-1.0 days, long before I ever used the current thing called macOS ,or MS-DOS/Windows, for that matter.
- namdnay 2y ago
  They don’t have to, everything can be done by CLI if you’re feeling particularly nerdy
- Toutouxc 2y ago
  I’m a Mac user of 10 years now and the total amount of times I’ve had to wipe and start fresh is exactly zero. So while you’re right about macOS taking some time to set up, it also doesn’t really matter [to me at least].

ilikehurdles 2y ago

Dock on the right is better as it’s more out of the way of buttons you’ll use (left side menus, window buttons) so you won’t accidentally unhide it. Also I could never get behind magnification, just makes it harder to predict where things are, but I almost never use the dock anyway.

whenlambo 2y ago
scrollbars
- ilikehurdles 2y ago
  Rarely used with a mac trackpad

lawgimenez 2y ago

Don’t download Xcode using the App Store.

phantomathkg 2y ago
curious. why?
- benterix 2y ago
  I don't know about the reasons of the parent but in my case after some time I was unable to upgrade Xcode on a new MBP 2019 with 128 GB even though it was the only app installed! It was about disk space management when installing via the App Store (not to mention growing space requirements). Downloading it manually solved the problem.
- lawgimenez 2y ago
  Either it gets stuck with the update or won’t install at all.
kcartlidge 2y ago
I don't use Xcode itself, but do use the Xcode command line tools. I've found the simplest way to install them on a new machine is to open a terminal, try and run `git` (which isn't yet installed), and then you're automatically prompted to install the Xcode command line tools (only) and taken through it.

ladberg 2y ago

I have a similar thing here, mostly just for System Preferences stuff and other Apple app settings: https://gist.github.com/leoadberg/f889f49b4c33d967d7f5c9101a5503f7 https://gist.github.com/leoadberg/f889f49b4c33d967d7f5c9101a... Would recommend stealing parts of it! I feel like the default state of macOS can be pretty unusable at times.

0x2a 2y ago
FWIW, most of the reddit self-promo filters should be addressed by the EasyList and AdGuard annoyances lists. If not, consider submitting an issue (they're very responsive): https://adguard.com/kb/guides/report-website/ https://adguard.com/kb/guides/report-website/ https://reports.adguard.com/en/new_issue.html https://reports.adguard.com/en/new_issue.html

matricaria 2y ago

Why don’t you use TimeMachine?

stpn 2y ago

One cute trick I've found is that you can install mas[0] (mac app store cli) and then have mas install things from the app store for you[1]. also, at least some system prefs can be set via the defaults util[2]. [0]: https://github.com/mas-cli/mas https://github.com/mas-cli/mas [1]: https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L91-L94 https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L... [2]: https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L22-L39 https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L...

mattacular 2y ago

Other than installing programs, most of this stuff can be automated by writing a shell script. For example: ``` # Remove the auto-hiding Dock delay defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0 # Remove the animation when hiding/showing the Dock defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0 # Automatically hide and show the Dock defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true ``` More here: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos It's kind of old but most of them should still work.

dschuessler 2y ago
You should be able to automate installing programs with homebrew.[0] [0]: https://brew.sh/ https://brew.sh/
thiht 2y ago
I highly recommend https://macos-defaults.com/ https://macos-defaults.com/ for a list of useful `defaults` commands. I automated almost all my macOS settings thanks to it. It's not exhaustive but gives a few hints to help you find the settings relevant to you.

tengbretson 2y ago

Enabling 3 finger mouse dragging is my favorite hidden tweak. Its in accessibility settings rather than the regular trackpad settings for some reason

archagon 2y ago
Another hidden tweak (that unfortunately interferes with yours): "Swipe between pages" set to "Swipe with Three Fingers." No more animation when navigating back/forward in Safari, and it works in more places to boot, e.g. Finder and Xcode Documentation. (This is because it uses an entirely different code path for navigation. Some more context under "Technical Notes": https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net)

from-nibly 2y ago

Not on a Mac but I use nix and home-manager. Not sure if it can do everything on a Mac but all my computers programs stay in sync with 1 git repo.

pebblesun 2y ago

Open Safari -> Install Chrome -> Open Chrome. Lol

benterix 2y ago
You probably meant install Firefox. I'm not sure why anyone here would voluntarily participate in building Google's empire other than work-related requirements.

moribvndvs 2y ago

I too had a manual checklist like the author and dragged my feet on a proper solution. Now I have a dotfiles repo with a script that installs homebrew, installs everything in a brewfile, then uses chezmoi to do all my system and shell customization. I’ll eventually get it to the point where I can copy and decrypt secrets, RSA keys, and the likes, as well as support multiple uses (work vs personal) and OSes. The benefit to this is less about new system setup (I don’t buy a new laptop every time the battery goes) and more about synchronizing my settings across machines.

irusensei 2y ago

I use nix-Darwin with combination with some other nix projects. The only beef is that it really doesn’t like updating casks.

tbeseda 2y ago

I'd use mise [0] over nvm these days. [0] https://mise.jdx.dev/ https://mise.jdx.dev/

egamirorrim 2y ago

I thought docker didn't work properly on Mac? If it does, why am I still using Colima?