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Honest question. Homebrew is the missing package manager for OS X. Linux has package managers, so why a fork? Packages just available through homebrew?
Features
Can install software to a home directory and so does not require sudo
Install software not packaged by the native distribution
Install up-to-date versions of software when the native distribution is old
Use the same package manager to manage both your Mac and Linux machines
Homebrew was created to add the package manager experience of Linux to Mac OS X, so what gap does this fill? Mac users already experience issues relating to having multiple non-default package managers (i.e. Homebrew and MacPorts) - what conflicts will having a default and non-default package manager arise? The problem it is trying to solve would be better approached hosting Debian, RHEL etc repositories which mirror…
After getting used to the (update) speed, flexibility, and reliability of Homebrew, it's shocking and frustrating to go back to Linux, where package managers were born, and have to settle for a less robust ecosystem.
Honest question. Homebrew is the missing package manager for OS X. Linux has package managers, so why a fork? Packages just available through homebrew?
- Mac users switching to or using linux, so no familiarity with other package managers to lead them elsewhere.
- Packages are easy to create with their ruby DSL; it might appear gimmicky but it's very easy to pick up despite possibly being less robust? The command `brew create ` even creates a template for you.
- CLI is super easy to use; `brew info ` tells you everything you need to know; not a significant advantage for anyone willing to read a man page.
- Existing packages as you said, plus it's still a hip package manager so... following contributions is easy? (Again, not a significant advantage except maybe for beginners.)
Most likely: the people who are already familiar with it want to use it elsewhere (their VMs, dual-boot setup, servers, ...).
Edit: Plus whatever is "unique" to brew / what totalrobe listed.
Why exactly is this needed? Conflicting with the system's package manager is obviously the most problematic issue with porting homebrew to linux, and I can imagine there's many more caveats that would render such a thing pretty useless.
Homebrew was created to add the package manager experience of Linux to Mac OS X, so what gap does this fill? Mac users already experience issues relating to having multiple non-default package managers (i.e. Homebrew and MacPorts) - what conflicts will having a default and non-default package manager arise? The problem it is trying to solve would be better approached hosting Debian, RHEL etc repositories which mirror…
installing the latest versions from source
Finally! It looks like a lot of commenters here are confused, but there are a lot of situations where the default package Linux package managers don't cut it. After getting used to the (update) speed, flexibility, and reliability of Homebrew, it's shocking and frustrating to go back to Linux, where package managers were born, and have to settle for a less robust ecosystem.
Standardizing a package manager across platforms is nice and making homebrew for linux does this without just creating another package manager to support packages.
Homebrew was created to add the package manager experience of Linux to Mac OS X, so what gap does this fill? Mac users already experience issues relating to having multiple non-default package managers (i.e. Homebrew and MacPorts) - what conflicts will having a default and non-default package manager arise? The problem it is trying to solve would be better approached hosting Debian, RHEL etc repositories which mirror…
I disagree, and I think Linuxbrew fills a different niche.
When you install something from your distro's package manager, you are actually installing another program that happens to come with the operating system. This has two implications:
- It's usually fixed at a particular version for that distro release.
- It's installed into the root filesystem or /usr.
When you compile something from source or download a pre-compiled .tar.gz, on the other hand, it's not something that came with the operating system, it's a third-party package installed by the administrator, and the rules are a bit different:
- You usually grab the latest version or a very specific version from the vendor's website.
- The correct place to put it is usually in /usr/local.
This is where the FreeBSD ports tree puts programs, and this is also where Homebrew puts programs in the OSX version at least. Assuming that Linuxbrew does the same thing, I believe Linuxbrew aims to be the ports tree equivalent for Linux.