I used Linuxbrew for a while before switching completely to nix-pkg due to some recurring issues I had downloading some packages. nix-pkg is quite nice and noticeably faster, although rough around the edges, and the commands are hard to remember (so I just set some aliases), but overall I am happy.
Homebrew 4.0.0
71–80 of 403 posts
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#72I despise, despise, Homebrew's "we know better than you" approach to always installing the latest versions of every dependency. How tf is this fine? They don't even offer alternative. They just say "we can't test all of the packages installed and all version combinations, so this is the best we can do". Well, no one asked you to test my exact setup. All I'm asking for is: if I have perfectly working Node 18 and I nee…
learn to use the free software you are complaining about, that's a first step.
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#73Before this whole threads turns into a misinformed rant fest about opt out telemetry: “Homebrew gathers anonymous aggregate user behaviour analytics using Google Analytics (until our in-progress migration to our own InfluxDB). You will be notified the first time you run brew update or install Homebrew. Analytics are not enabled until after this notice is shown, to ensure that you can opt out without ever sending anal…
That's opt-out, though? It's nice that they tell you, but they don't give you a choice. They're just warning you that you need to opt out. That's not the same as opting in. They're also claiming to log anonymous data while the data they collect is actually pseudonymous as its tied to your specific machine/user, which means it has a whole different status in different privacy jurisdictions. It seems like they could ma…
They don’t collect data until after you’ve been given the chance to opt out.
> It seems like they could make the data collection anonymous relatively easily if they just stop tracking individual user installs, though.
Doing that would skew the reports to more active users & automated scripts. If you’re asking questions like “how many people will notice if we deprecate this?” you don’t want to count the guy who hammers “brew update” every other command many times more than someone who updates weekly.
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it illegal, under GDPR, to track users without their consent?
Only if it’s personally identifiable information. You can track anonymous statistics as much as you want without requiring permission.
… which is also why the cookie banner scourge shows how nefarious companies are these days. They don't need identifiable information for their analytics, they're just all super greedy.
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
They'd be well advised to make this opt-in only for legal reasons. This is not going to go down well in a lot of places and they might get exposed to law suits.
As in the post: they're intending to drop the GA part entirely within 90 days, and it sounds like the new metrics are entirely anonymous, and so not covered by GDPR etc. IANAL but as far as I can tell that should avoid all legal concerns once GA is gone.
Why does a package manager need to track their users at all?
If you want usage statistics for packages just track how often individual packages are downloaded on the server side. A maintainer has no need to know who's installing what.
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#76Rewrite it in something compiled already, it's insanely slow
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#77Reminder that nothing in Homebrew has any signing or attempt at supply chain integrity. Now that they are moving away from clients using git, so even git commit signing is off the table now. When you install brew you are giving hundreds of people (or anyone who has access to their Github accounts) full remote code execution on your machine. Never ever use brew on a machine you use to access production.
I've been using Linux for the past 18 years or so, but damn do the M1 macs look interesting. How does one manage packages on a mac?
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#78On macOS, has anyone moved from/to MacPorts to/from Homebrew? Why did you move? What are the pros and cons of each system?
You have 3 questions.
1. I have used Fink. And I have used MacPorts. Now I use Homebrew.
2. When I get super-annoyed with a system, perhaps because it has entered a state where it won't update, I do a web search to see if folks have jumped from that ship to another. If there is a consensus, I jump with crowd. If not, I try to clear the decks, e.g. reinstalling from scratch, to see if I can improve my situation.
3. I don't have a list for you on the pros and cons. There may be some merit in choosing a system that is widely used, because then others might be able to help you if you encounter problems. By that measure, I think Homebrew is the best choice at the moment. But I've no reason to think there won't be something else just around the corner. I wish Apple would get in this game, but after so many decades of Apple standing by without acting, I am not especially sanguine.
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#79On macOS, has anyone moved from/to MacPorts to/from Homebrew? Why did you move? What are the pros and cons of each system?
I did recently, when I switched from an old computer to a new Apple Silicon Mac. It was pretty easy! I was already familiar with it because I used homebrew-cask for application installs, and used to help maintain that project. The most difficult part was really just redoing location of library paths for Perl and the such.
I like brew because it’s easier to audit, faster to fix issues, and tends to update first. Years ago, macports just had so much more, but that’s become less of an issue over the years, for me anyway. Getting away from sudo is always a plus. MacPorts probably(?) is still better for very old machines, though, both in terms of speed and availability.
Re: Homebrew 4.0.0
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can specify specific package versions in brew if you want specific versions pinned. The default behaviour of using the latest in repo is correct and is how every package manager works. It’s the behaviour people expect and it’s the behaviour that is arguably more secure (the fact that homebrew is bleeding edge does create issues here but generally speaking my point stands). I believe you pin using the @ symbol fol…
This is not at all how every package manager works. On debian if you install a package it will just install that package and it will warn you if dependencies will require upgrading first. It won't upgrade totally unrelated packages and break everything for you. In addition, you have different branches where the debian stable branch is extremely well tested. Homebrew is way, way worse than any other package manager be…
> On debian if you install a package it will just install that package and it will warn you if dependencies will require upgrading first. It won't upgrade totally unrelated packages and break everything for you
This is exactly how Homebrew works, too. The difference is that Debian won’t ship a new version outside of a major release so if you started with Node 18 you won’t get 19 until next year.
Now, of course, developers usually don’t like that so there are non-core repositories which update more frequently … and you get exactly the behavior which Homebrew has. Being oriented at developers just means Homebrew does that by default.