Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#21

Post by lelandfe » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

jolux wrote: post #7

I didn’t think brew upgrade d packages automatically? Just update d the index? Am I missing something here?

I believe a proper ‘brew update’ does indeed get ran when doing an install.

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#22

Post by devoutsalsa » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

For databases specifically, I like a little tool called DBngin. It's perfect on MacOS for installing various versions of databases. I used to install MySQL 5.7 for an older legacy application because I was finding it challenging to juggle different versions on MySQL w/ Homebrew. I know it handles MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis. Maybe is handles other stuff, but I haven't checked.

https://dbngin.com/

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#23

Post by mdaniel » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:54 AM UTC

jolux wrote: post #7

I didn’t think brew upgrade d packages automatically? Just update d the index? Am I missing something here?

They have a separate env var with language that matches OP's experience:

    HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_UPGRADE
    If set, brew install will not automatically upgrade installed but outdated formulae

https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_UPGRADE (that's a fake hyperlink cause they don't put named anchors on their for some reason)

updated with an actual hyperlink: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/3.3.2/docs/Manpage.md?...

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#24

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:56 AM UTC

Why did you want to `brew install virtualenv`? That’s no longer the current way to work with python. Virtual environments are now in the standard library:

  python -m venv /my/directory

I’ve never had any problem with homebrew in over a decade’s usage. But yes, don’t use it for python development tooling: use pyenv and python -m venv and pip for that.

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#25

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:58 AM UTC

nix.

It's confusing, but we'll get there. You'll need/want:

- nix, the tool/build system.

- nixpkgs, the world's most up-to-date and underfunded package repository.

- nix-darwin, bringing a NixOS experience to Darwin. Not perfect, but pretty damn great.

And optionally,

- home-manager, a nix-based opinionated tool to manage dotfiles and other stuff in your home directory.

And finally, some things to avoid and experimental features to use:

- do not ever use `nix env -i` to install things ala homebrew, apt, etc. This is a trap. You don't want this.

- use nix flakes. Sure, it's experimental, but it's what you _do_ want. Reproducible, version-pinned builds.

- if you use direnv, or are familiar with it, check out nix-direnv, which is like direnv on crack. Instead of managing your packages globally, manage them per workspace or project.

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#26

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:58 AM UTC

notafraudster wrote: post #18

I just reached the same breaking point -- and normally I am pretty sympathetic to software jank, but the maintainer of homebrew is so actively hostile and rude that my degree of empathy is significantly less -- and switched to Nix, which is quite good, conditional on three gotchas: 1. Nix has very limited support for GUI applications of the kind that you'd find in `brew cask`. Not no support, some of them are there,…

What’s an actual concrete example of a problem you have with homebrew?

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#27

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

Apreche wrote: post #12

The fact that homebrew is awful is one of the huge reasons I don’t use MacOS for development like all my co-workers. Instead I use Windows with WSL because the company won’t allow me a Linux laptop. If I had to use a Mac my solutions would be to alway use Docker, a virtual machine, or a remote dev environment of some kind.

What’s an actual concrete example of a problem you have with homebrew?

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#28

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 12:00 PM UTC

doniphon wrote: post #19

sorry OP by this is a clickbait rant from someone who just did not made his homework and ended loosing time and data. - Homebrew is rolling - always was and never claimed otherwise. - OTOH for key packages (say databases) it has available versioned bottles. for postgresql one have: - postgresql@10 - postgresql@12 - postgresql@9.4 - postgresql@9.6 - postgresql (points to latest) - postgresql@11 - postgresql@13 - postg…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#29

Post by da39a3ee » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

BruceEel wrote: post #13

My experience is that both (Macports, Homebrew) are comically unreliable and frustrating to use. That said, with my insistence to install under $HOME, Macports seems to work slightly better. But truly, I got the best results from downloading and compiling every single flipping dependency myself.

Homebrew isn’t unreliable — I’ve used it for more than a decade with no problem. What’s an actual problem you have with it? Perhaps others here could help you.

Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

#30

Post by yakubin » Tue, Nov 02, 2021, 12:03 PM UTC

A while ago there was a post on HN about pkgsrc[1][2][3], which works on Mac, among other platforms. I haven't tried it, but it may be worth a shot.

[1]: https://rubenerd.com/using-netbsds-pkgsrc-everywhere-i-can/>

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27293108>

[3]: http://www.pkgsrc.org/>