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Homebrew / MacPorts

Using Mac is not something extra ordinary, everyone is using it nowadays. I find small nice perks in it every now and then which I like to share it with you. This one is about MacPorts and Homebrew.

If you are a programmer, developer, software engineer or simply a code guru, you can find number of applications to enhance your coding experience in Mac. As you know Mac OS is a *nix based platform, you have both Mac specific apps as well as linux/unix compatible apps on it.
One major kind of applications that you might find advantageous is package dependency resolution / installation with one click. MacPorts and Homebrew are not exactly just that (i.e. one click installation) but they are huge help on installing packages on your Mac. I have tried both and this is what I have found.

Homebrew:
I have tried the following commands to install Homebrew.

  • ruby -e “$(curl -fsSkL raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)” 
  • ruby <(curl -fsSkL raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go) 

it didn’t work for me. Then I head to “Trouble installing Mac Homebrew“. Following these steps I was able to install Homebrew:

  • cd /usr/local/bin mkdir homebrew 
  • && curl -L https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/tarball/master | tar xz –strip 1 -C 
Then I have to update and doctor Homebrew in order to install my package, using the following commands:
  • ./brew update 
  • ./brew doctor 

Then I have added Homebrew to path,  restart it.I then, have to create links to java Extensions manually as follow (specific to the package I wanted to install):

  • sudo mkdir -p /Library/Java/Extensions/ 
  • sudo ln -s /usr/local/homebrew/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.dylib /Library/Java/Extensions/libsvnjavahl-1.dylib

restarting Eclipse, the package I intended to install did work. It was a subclipse package for Mac.

MacPorts:
I tried installing the package initially using Macports but it didn’t work. I couldn’t find any resource on how to troubleshoot it, either I was lazy or I had to search more. Nevertheless, I have reached my goal of installing the package using Homebrew much simpler than using Macports can say much simpler I have reached my goal of installing package with Homebrew.

1 thought on “Homebrew / MacPorts

  1. Completely useless article that only shows your bias towards Homebrew and how lazy you are. A simple entry of "macports install" on Google and the first result is http://www.macports.org/install.php, which walks you through the install process consisting of clicking the link for the version of OS X you're running. Yep that is tough.

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