This si literally why docker exists. I would never install something on a system and then complain it is being updated from time to time. The system needs to stay safe and follow a path of updates in order to cover vulnerabilities and such. Put it in docker and version lock it.
Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
41–50 of 314 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#42I 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,…
I find Mike McQuaid pretty reasonable and forthright whenever I have ever messaged him. Also, he is hardly responsible for every formula out there.
For anyone who remembers the year 2000 and having to compile everything from scratch, Homebrew is brilliant - but there are complexities and quirks. For Python I’d go with pyenv. Postgres - well, watch your step and maybe use Docker instead.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#43I started using nix. It’s difficult and search results are not often helpful.
Your honesty is refreshing. I've seen countless people trying a new technology/tool, and overselling it as 'amazing' and super easy. Seeing a post like yours helps to keep the discussion grounded in reality, with tools that looks nice on paper but have practical downsides as well.
I agree with this general sentiment, but I'll add that it's worth reading most posts about Nix through this lens.
Finding your sea legs is rough, and IME people who completely deny this are few and far between. The reward is a pretty impressive lever.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#44If you want package managers, go Linux.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#45I have reasonable experience with macport, just remember to enable multithreading, or it can be exraordinarily slow.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#46I 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,…
I also tried Nix (as well as NixOS) but it's obviously difficult to use and has a very steep learning curve. But actually it might be the most flexible and stable package manager out there. So probably the problems mentioned can be fixed by custom configuration but that might require deep-diving into Nix and using Functional Programming for package configs... For some time I also used to just ./configure && make && make install (sometimes combined with stow) to my home dir, that worked also well but makes installing and upgrading tedious.
That said, I'm sticking to Homebrew. Not really sure about this auto-upgrading, maybe it can be deactivated, on the other hand probably it's a good way to keep packages updated.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#47A 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/ >
I checked and it appears to suffer from the same problem as MacPorts in only making the ancient version of awscli available: http://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/net/py-awscl... I wasn't able to immediately find any issue tracker for pkgsrc packages, and it seems they're a "mailing list and IRC" type setup, which if true means it definitely isn't for me
why does the protocol by which bugs and problems get tracked matter, its not like you dont have an email address already... the bug reporting tool is mentioned on the packages page but not the most clear. http://www.pkgsrc.org/#index2h1
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#48I very much dislike that autoupdate is the default. This is user-hostile.
I instructed you, brew to install something. Not to spend an eternity autoupdating things.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#49Macports
Seconded, I've never had a problem with Macports, it just works.
Re: Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?
#50The 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.
I hate that you are forced to sign up for an Apple account just to install XCode which is required for Homebrew which pretty much makes the machine useless.
This is not correct. All you need is the command line tools, which brew tells you to install with `xcode-select --install`. No account needed.