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Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?

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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how to add that prompt by default without breaking existing scripts. Making it non-default seems like it wouldn’t help (given comments here).

Fair enough. Like the sibling says, checking the moral equivalent of [ -t 0 ] probably distinguishes enough interactive vs non-interactive use to add an interactive-only default. I'd add that script-y usage of brew already can block on user input (e.g. if a cask asks for sudo), so adding a go/no-go check probably only breaks the most determined automators, while the benefits accrue to a wide swath of users (both new…

Yeh, that’s the interactive check we’ve used in the past and unfortunately it still has given false positives and false negatives enough I’m hesitant to make a change this big due to it.

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

#312

Homebrew project leader here: I hope you're able to find a package manager that better fits your needs and I'm sorry that Homebrew is not currently doing so. --- Homebrew upgrades dependencies and dependents of those dependencies (which, admittedly, can feel like unrelated) on installation and upgrade. As mentioned in other comments, you can customise this behaviour with `HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_UPGRADE` or `HOMEBREW_NO_…

I've opened https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/pull/12413 to improve the discoverability and documentation for all this stuff.

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

#313

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,…

Thanks for the summary, it is very helpful! I love Haskell and its philosophy and I'm intrigued to find that there can be some of it in a package manager as well.

One question: How do you properly install things like R on the M1 Macs, then? Do you use a 'backup' package manager?

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

#314

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 experime…

I've never used nix, but it sounds interesting. What getting started guide would you recommend? Ideally one that has all these "insider tips" that you offer, so that I learn to use Nix "properly".
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