3 ms·

To me this post can be framed under dissonance in the dictionary. Installing a package manager and a package from it apparently is harder than installing an OS

To me this post can be framed under dissonance in the dictionary. Installing a package manager and a package from it apparently is harder than installing an OS and the installing a package from its package manager. And lets be honest here. It’s not like homebrew is a set in stone necessity. I use Nix, theres macports, you can build the package from source. All with less complexity than running what is in the end a whole os in a vm

hughw 2y ago
I'm mystified at Homebrew's dominance. It seemed to come unglued for me every few months. I switched to Macports years ago and my cli world has been stable and up-to-date.
- pasc1878 2y ago
  I suspect because users and the originbal auithor did not understand multi user UNIX and so don't like the idea of having to use sudo and also they use Apple tools as much as possible rather than controlling the versions of libraries that they use which would be what commercial users were doing with Unix over 20 years before. It also uses /usr/local which is for locally compiled software so you get in a mess if you have a compiled version of a library that is also in Homebrew. Macports and nix and fink will build under a new user id and install as root as per any other Unix. Thus the build can be controlled to only use known versions of other libraries. Homebrew installs as the current user. - Try using it when you do have multiple users on a mac (which is uncommon).
  - latexr 2y ago
    > It also uses /usr/local That is only true on Intel—on Apple Silicon it uses /opt/homebrew—so it will only become less true as time goes on. The only reason it used /usr/local in the first place was that at the time many of the software packages it supported were broken if installed anywhere but /usr/local. In other words, Homebrew didn’t pick that location to annoy you or because they didn’t know better, but for a real practical reason. That location was always an optional default, you’re free to change it. If you do, everything will be compiled from source rather than using compiled binaries and won’t be offered support. But it does work.
    - pasc1878 2y ago
      macports and fink managed in another directory for 8+ years before Anything using normal Unix build tools like autotools allow easy change of install directory.

hughw 2y ago

I'm mystified at Homebrew's dominance. It seemed to come unglued for me every few months. I switched to Macports years ago and my cli world has been stable and up-to-date.

pasc1878 2y ago
I suspect because users and the originbal auithor did not understand multi user UNIX and so don't like the idea of having to use sudo and also they use Apple tools as much as possible rather than controlling the versions of libraries that they use which would be what commercial users were doing with Unix over 20 years before. It also uses /usr/local which is for locally compiled software so you get in a mess if you have a compiled version of a library that is also in Homebrew. Macports and nix and fink will build under a new user id and install as root as per any other Unix. Thus the build can be controlled to only use known versions of other libraries. Homebrew installs as the current user. - Try using it when you do have multiple users on a mac (which is uncommon).
- latexr 2y ago
  > It also uses /usr/local That is only true on Intel—on Apple Silicon it uses /opt/homebrew—so it will only become less true as time goes on. The only reason it used /usr/local in the first place was that at the time many of the software packages it supported were broken if installed anywhere but /usr/local. In other words, Homebrew didn’t pick that location to annoy you or because they didn’t know better, but for a real practical reason. That location was always an optional default, you’re free to change it. If you do, everything will be compiled from source rather than using compiled binaries and won’t be offered support. But it does work.
  - pasc1878 2y ago
    macports and fink managed in another directory for 8+ years before Anything using normal Unix build tools like autotools allow easy change of install directory.