This blog post contains a collection of small tips for engineers migrating from GNU/Linux to Mac OS X for software development. Note: In another post , I wrote about why there is a dearth of a good GNU/Linux laptop. Mac is based on Open BSD which is similar to GNU/Linux but there are quite a few major differences from GNU/Linux. My exposure to BSD is limited, so, I won’t even try to draw a comparison here. Following are some things that I learned and have been useful.
Software Packages
The default style of software installation is slightly weird on Mac. Most software comes in the form of a .dmg file (like .msi for Windows). One has to open the dmg and then drag it to the Applications directory. To uninstall, one can just delete the directory. OS X saves software packages in /Applications directory.
Here are some of my favorites,
- Finder (installed by default) - Mac version of Gnome Nautilus or Windows Explorer. Tip: Cmd + O - open the file while pressing “enter” edit the filename.
- iTerm2 - Terminal app
- XQuartz - for running software that requires an X11 windowing system. For example, Wireshark requires it.
- Quicksilver - Universal search for Mac. After installing this app, use Cmd + space to trigger it and type anything from filename to application name
- Zipeg - Archive viewer
- Xcode - Development Tools. IMHO, it is impossible to survive without this. A lot of other packages mentioned further depend on Xcode.
- VMWare Fusion - for running GNU/Linux virtual machines. It is not free. There are free alternatives like VirtualBox . Some combine this with Vagrant .
- MacVim - For those who just want to use Vim without the terminal. I prefer Vim instead.
- MplayerX - for watching offline videos
Unlike apt-get on Ubuntu or yum on Fedora, Mac does not come with a command-line package manager. The solution is to use homebrew . I have tried MacPorts as well and I feel homebrew is more polished. To install homebrew
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Now to install wget, which does not come by default on Mac machines, do
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To look around for brew formulas related to GNU coreutils, do
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By default, brew can only install command-line GNU/Linux-style tools. To install a Mac app (.dmg packages), one can enable cask via,
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Now, Google Chrome can be installed via,
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I started using brew cask only recently and my setup can be found
here
.
For Python-based packages, one can use easy_install
pip
.
For Ruby-based packages use
gem install
.
Default version of Ruby is old, upgrade using brew.
Try
rvm
if your main job is to do Ruby based software development.
For
node.js
-based packages install npm (brew install npm).
I have not done any rigorous C/C++ development on Mac, so, I am not sure about how good it is.
CLI
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Bash shipped with Mac is old, better to upgrade to the latest.
1 2$ brew install bash ... -
pbcopy, pbpaste - interacts with pasteboard, which is Mac’s clipboard.
1 2 3$ echo "copy this to clipboard" | pbcopy $ pbpaste # Pastes the content of clipboard ... -
open is the standard command for opening any file (it chooses the relevant application).
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defaults is for modifying settings of various apps via the command line, e.g.
1 2$ defaults read ...to see a list of all such settings.
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Default autocomplete settings for commands in Mac are subpar. My collection of fixes is here .
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A lot of other default settings in Mac are not developer-friendly. My .osx file is here , it is based on the legendary .osx files from Mathias. Feel free to read my dotfiles and also for more examples https://dotfiles.github.io/ .
Minor Things
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Filenames are case-insensitive, by default, on the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system.
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Right mouse click - Cmd + click
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Closing a window does not close the application, Cmd + Q does.
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Default key repeat speed is slow for programming. Following is a fix for that (taken from the source )
1 2$ defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0 ... -
Try out two-finger, three-finger, and four-finger swipes on the trackpad. It is pretty amazing.
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All credentials (like Wi-Fi passwords, certificates, etc.) are stored in the Keychain app.
1 2$ open -a "Keychain Access" ... -
To list all the applications installed on the system use (taken from source )
1 2$ system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType -xml ...(system_profiler in general, is a pretty useful command as well).