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Homebrew
========
A simple package management system for OS X Leopard. Packages are brewed in
individual, versioned kegs. For example:
Homebrew's purpose is the same as MacPorts or Fink, ie. to let you easily
install other open source software on your Mac.
/usr/local/Cellar/wget/1.11.4/bin/wget
/usr/local/Cellar/wget/1.11.4/share/man/man1/wget.1
…
Here's why you may prefer Homebrew to the alternatives:
And symlinks are created to allow a normal POSIX tree:
1. Zeroconf installation
Copy the contents of this directory to /usr/local. Homebrew is now ready
for use.
/usr/local/bin/wget -> /usr/local/Cellar/wget/1.11.4/bin/wget
/usr/local/etc/wgetrc -> /usr/local/Cellar/wget/1.11.4/etc/wgetrc
…
2. Or… install anywhere!
You can actually stick this directory anywhere. Like ~/.local or /opt or
/lol if you like. You can even move this directory somewhere else later.
This way the filesystem is the package database. Everything else is now easy.
We are made of win.
3. The GoboLinux approach
Packages are installed to their own prefix (eg. /usr/local/Cellar/wget) and
then symlinked into the Homebrew prefix (eg. /usr/local).
This way the filesystem is the package database. As is often the case with
the simplest possible solution, it makes everything else easier and better.
Eg. You can, if you like, rm -rf to uninstall a package. Or use find to
list the package contents. Or du to see its size.
4. You don't have to sudo
It's up to you. We recommend not to--see the relevant later section.
5. Easy package creation
Packages are just Ruby scripts. Generate a template with:
brew mk http://foo/tarball-0.89.tgz
Homebrew will automatically open it for you to tweak with TextMate or
$EDITOR.
Or skip going via a package entirely, just install into the Cellar and use
"brew ln" to symlink it into the main tree.
6. Optimisation
We optimise for Leopard Intel, binaries are stripped, compile flags
tweaked. Nobody wants crappy, slow software. Apart from MacPorts and Fink.
7. Integration with existing OS X technologies
Homebrew integrates with Ruby gems, CPAN and Python disttools. These tools
exist already and do the job great. We don't reinvent the wheel, we just
improve it by making these tools install with more management options.
8. Complimenting what OS X already has
Macports is an autarky. You get a duplicate copy of libz, OpenSSL, Python
etc. They do this to support OS X Tiger, etc. more easily. We don't support
Tiger, we duplicate nothing. Homebrew compliments OS X, it doesn't seek to
operate independently of it.
9. Homebrew has a beer theme
Beer goggles will help you to evangelise Homebrew more effectively.
X. Homebrew helps get you chicks
There's no conclusive scientific evidence as yet, but I firmly believe it's
just a matter of statistics and time.
Max Howell <http://twitter.com/mxcl>
Installation
============
Firstly, we build from source, so you need Xcode.
Homebrew is zeroconf, but almost everything it installs is built from source;
so you need Xcode:
http://developer.apple.com/technology/xcode.html
Next, uninstall MacPorts and Fink (or just rename their root folders). Many
build scripts blindly look in /opt/local etc. and end up linking to that stuff
anyway! If you just want to trial Homebrew then you'll get away with not moving MacPorts or Fink, it's just not recommended.
Also, a lot of build scripts assume MacPorts or Fink on OS X. Which isn't a
problem until you uninstall them and stuff you built with Homebrew breaks and
you email me with a bug report. So uninstall them (or rename their root
folders if you don't want to burn bridges).
http://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#HowdoIremoveoruninstallMacPorts
http://www.finkproject.org/faq/usage-fink.php#removing
@ -37,30 +82,37 @@ It is self-contained and ready to go. Just copy this directory somewhere.
Things work really well if you put it in /usr/local (especially if you are a
developer).
You can stick this directory in your home directory if you like. In that case
a typical (POSIX) choice would be: /User/mxcl/.local
If you don't install to /usr/local (but seriously it's great!) then you'll
need to edit your ~/.profile file to add Homebrew's bin directory to the PATH.
Don't sudo
----------
If you install to /usr/local don't sudo
---------------------------------------
Well clearly you can sudo if you like. Homebrew is all about you doing it your
way. But we recommend that you don't sudo. Apple designed the OS X heirarchy
so that you can do things like:
way. But the Homebrew recommendation is: don't sudo!
On OS X, this requires your user to be in the admin group, but it doesn't
require sudo:
$ cpan -i MP3::Info
Without having to sudo (although you still need an admin user account).
Clearly they intended for you to install new stuff that they didn't provide
without becoming root.
OS X is designed to minimise sudo use, you only need it for real root level
stuff. On OS X you know your /System and /usr are as clean and pure as the day
you bought your Mac because you didn't sudo. You can sleep better at night.
Sudo is dangerous, it can break your system. All the tools Homebrew installs
are not system critical. Sudo just makes Homebrew more difficult and more
dangerous for you to play with.
If you are already the kind of guy who installed TextMate by dragging and
dropping it to /Applications, then you won't mind if libflac and pngcrush are
installed under your user privileges too. Lets face it; Homebrew is not
installing anything system-critical. Apple already did that.
If you don't sudo, you know for sure that /usr and /System haven't been
tampered with. Thus you'll sleep better at night.
Let this be the last sudo you do for quite some time:
$ sudo chown -r `whoami`:staff /usr/local
I already have a bunch of junk in /usr/local
--------------------------------------------
Yeah that's typical. See what you've got, mv the local folder somewhere else,
mv Homebrew there and then just reinstall that stuff using Homebrew.
How about mate and gitx and that?
---------------------------------
They can easily coexist with Homebrew, that's the beauty of the homebrew-way.
Usage
@ -68,69 +120,38 @@ Usage
Install wget:
brew install wget
Update recipes list:
cd /usr/local && git pull origin masterbrew
Update package list:
cd /usr/local && git pull origin masterbrew [1]
Delete a package:
1. rm -rf /usr/local/Cellar/wget && brew prune
2. brew rm wget
brew rm wget OR rm -rf /usr/local/Cellar/wget && brew prune
List all files in a package:
1. find /usr/local/Cellar/wget
2. brew list wget
brew list wget OR find /usr/local/Cellar/wget
Search for a package to install:
ls /usr/local/Library/Formula/*wget*
ls /usr/local/Library/Formula/
Search for a package already installed:
ls /usr/local/Cellar/*wget*
List all packages available to install:
ls /usr/local/Library/Formula
ls /usr/local/Cellar/
Compute installed size of package:
du -h /usr/local/Cellar/wget
brew info wget OR du /usr/local/Cellar/wget
Show expensive packages:
du -md1 /usr/local/Cellar
You get the idea.
With Homebrew this is all Ruby. If you want to improve the package
installation, amend the Ruby script. If you want to improve the brew command
amend the Ruby script. If you want to know exactly what is going on, read the
Ruby script.
Maybe we should overload more of this stuff with the brew command, but frankly
I feel that this way *you* will understand the capabilities of the system
better. And you basically know everything that is going on.
With apt, you type apt-get install wget. Now what is happening? With Homebrew
you are running a ruby script. You know what is happening. You can easily and
quickly read the source and modify it and then push the patch to github if
anything you need is missing or something is not working. This is real open
source.
NOTE you have to install git before you can update the package list, but
[1] You have to install git before you can update the package list, but
that's easy:
brew install git
Why Not MacPorts?
=================
1. MacPorts installs its own libz, its own openssl, etc. It's an autarky.
This makes no sense to me. OS X comes with all that stuff.
2. MacPorts support Tiger, and PPC. We don't, so things are better optimised.
3. cmake has like 100 dependencies in MacPorts, with Homebrew it has one
Homebrew Will Never Build:
==========================
1. KDE, or GNOME, or anything that vast
2. Anything that should be distributed in a .app bundle
3. Anything that needs to install outside of the Homebrew tree
4. Stuff OS X already does, eg. rubygems (duplication sucks)
I say never, but if you really want these things you can fork the tree and
do it yourself. It's just my tree will never build those things.
Why Compile From Source?
========================
Since we only target Intel Leopard boxes, why not just distribute binaries?
@ -149,29 +170,14 @@ to /usr, so we suggest you adapt the tools to install into Homebrew's prefix:
http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki
How do I Notify Someone that a Package is out of Date?
======================================================
Chances are that if the package hasn't been updated for a few days, then the
previous maintainer has vanished. You have to do it. Don't worry, unlike every
other packaging system ever, it's easy with Homebrew:
1. Edit the relevant ruby file in /usr/local/Formula
2. Fork Homebrew on github (or git diff > patch)
3. Send mxcl a pull request
Congratulations, you have contributed to an open source project!
Contributing
============
New Formulae
------------
Firstly generate the formula:
Contributing New Formulae
=========================
Homebrew can generate the formula with most stuff pre-done:
brew mk http://foo.org/foobar-1.2.1.tar.bz2
You now have /usr/local/Library/Formula/foobar.rb.
Now it would be useful to amend the formula based on its configure options:
You now have /usr/local/Library/Formula/foobar.rb. This may already work.
But maybe there are some juicy configure options?
brew install foobar --help
@ -186,22 +192,15 @@ Try to install it:
brew install foobar
If it worked, fork http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew and ask me to pull. If it
didn't you may need to dig a little deeper.
I'll try to optimise the package when I pull, but it would be nice if you did
that for me ;)
HomeBrew is not an autarky so any dependencies outside of OS X that a package
may require may be installed separately. We have functions to help with that.
Fork http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew and ask mxcl to pull.
Other useful commands when contributing
---------------------------------------
brew edit # opens Textmate with all of Homebrew as a project
brew edit foobar # opens that formula for editing in Textmate
brew install foobar --debug # if the build fails, you can fix it
brew [something] --verbose # you get a proper ruby backtrace
brew install foobar --interactive # you are dumped at a shell with the extracted tarball as PWD
brew edit # opens Textmate with all of Homebrew as a project
brew edit foobar # opens that formula for editing in Textmate
brew install foobar --debug # if the build fails, you can fix it
brew [something] --verbose # you get a proper ruby backtrace
brew install foobar --interactive # opens a new shell at the extract tarball
Code
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