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Tutorial
Introduction
The command line interface is a non-graphical way to interact with your computer. Instead of clicking buttons with your mouse, you’ll type commands as text and receive text-based feedback. The command line, also known as a shell, lets you automate many tasks you do on your computer daily, and is an essential tool for software developers.
While the command line interface on macOS has a lot of the functionality you’d find in Linux and other Unix systems, it does not ship with a package manager. A package manager is a collection of software tools that work to automate software installations, configurations, and upgrades. Package managers keep the software they install in a central location and can maintain all software packages on the system in formats that are commonly used.
Homebrew is a package manager for macOS which lets you install free and open-source software using your terminal. You’ll use Homebrew to install developer tools like Python, Ruby, Node.js, and more.
In this tutorial you’ll install and use Homebrew on your Mac. You’ll install system tools and desktop applications from the command line interface.
Prerequisites
You will need a macOS computer running Catalina or higher with administrative access and an internet connection. While older versions of macOS may work, they are not officially supported.
Step 1 — Using the macOS Terminal
To access the command line interface on your Mac, you’ll use the Terminal application provided by macOS. Like any other application, you can find it by going into Finder, navigating to the Applications
folder, and then into the Utilities
folder. From here, double-click the Terminal application to open it up. Alternatively, you can use Spotlight by holding down the COMMAND
key and pressing SPACE
to find Terminal by typing it out in the box that appears.
To get more comfortable using the command line, take a look at An Introduction to the Linux Terminal. The command line interface on macOS is very similar, and the concepts in that tutorial are directly applicable.
Now that you have the Terminal running, let’s install some additional tools that Homebrew needs.
Step 2 — Installing Xcode’s Command Line Tools
Xcode is an integrated development environment (IDE) that is comprised of software development tools for macOS. You won’t need Xcode to use Homebrew, but some of the software and components you’ll want to install will rely on Xcode’s Command Line Tools package.
Execute the following command in the Terminal to download and install these components:
You’ll be prompted to start the installation, and then prompted again to accept a software license. Then the tools will download and install automatically.
You can now install Homebrew.
Step 3 — Installing and Setting Up Homebrew
To install Homebrew, you’ll download an installation script and then execute the script.
First, download the script to your local machine by typing the following command in your Terminal window:
The command uses curl
to download the Homebrew installation script from Homebrew’s Git repository on GitHub.
Let’s walk through the flags that are associated with the curl
command:
- The -
f
or--fail
flag tells the Terminal window to give no HTML document output on server errors. - The
-s
or--silent
flag mutescurl
so that it does not show the progress meter, and combined with the-S
or--show-error
flag it will ensure thatcurl
shows an error message if it fails. - The
-L
or--location
flag will tellcurl
to handle redirects. If the server reports that the requested page has moved to a different location, it’ll automatically execute the request again using the new location. - The
-o
switch specifies a local filename for the file. Rather than displaying the contents to the screen, the-o
switch saves the contents into the file you specify.
Before running a script you’ve download from the Internet, you should review its contents so you know what the script will do. Use the less
command to review the installation script so you understand what it will do'
Once you’re comfortable with the contents of the script, execute the script with the bash
command:
How To Install Homebrew On Catalina
The installation script will explain what it will do and will prompt you to confirm that you want to do it. This lets you know exactly what Homebrew is going to do to your system before you let it proceed. It also ensures you have the prerequisites in place before it continues.
You’ll be prompted to enter your password during the process. However, when you type your password, your keystrokes will not display in the Terminal window. This is a security measure and is something you’ll see often when prompted for passwords on the command line. Even though you don’t see them, your keystrokes are being recorded by the system, so press the RETURN
key once you’ve entered your password.
Press the letter y
for “yes” whenever you are prompted to confirm the installation.
Once the installation process is complete, you will want to put the directory Homebrew uses to store its executables at the front of the PATH
environment variable. This ensures that Homebrew installations will be called over the tools that macOS includes.
The file you’ll modify depends on which shell you’re using. ZSH is the default shell on macOS Mojave and higher. The Bash shell is a popular shell that older versions of macOS used as the default, and if you’ve upgraded your OS, you may still be using Bash.
Execute the following command to determine your shell:
You’ll see either bash
or zsh
.
If you’re using ZSH, you’ll open the file ~/.zshrc
in your editor:
If you’re using the Bash shell, you’ll use the file ~/.bash_profile
:
Once the file opens up in the Terminal window, add the following lines to the end of the file:
The first line is a comment that will help you remember what this does if you open this file in the future.
To save your changes, hold down the CTRL
key and the letter O
, and when prompted, press the RETURN
key. Then exit the editor by holding the CTRL
key and pressing X
. This will return you to your Terminal prompt.
To activate these changes, close and reopen your Terminal app. Alternatively, use the source
command to load the file you modified.
If you modified .zshrc
, execute this command:
If you modified .bash_profile
, execute this command:
Once you have done this, the changes you have made to the PATH
environment variable will take effect. They’ll be set correctly when you log in again in the future, as the configuration file for your shell is executed automatically when you open the Terminal app.
Now let’s verify that Homebrew is set up correctly. Execute this command:
If no updates are required at this time, you’ll see this in your Terminal:
Otherwise, you may get a warning to run another command such as brew update
to ensure that your installation of Homebrew is up to date. Follow any on-screen instructions to fix your environment before moving on.
Step 4 — Installing, Upgrading, and Removing Packages
Macos Install Homebrew Catalina Update
Now that Homebrew is installed, use it to download a package. The tree
command lets you see a graphical directory tree and is available via Homebrew.
Install tree
with the brew install
command:
Homebrew will update its list of packages and then download and install the tree
command:
Homebrew installs files to /usr/local
by default, so they won’t interfere with future macOS updates. Verify that tree
is installed by displaying the command’s location with the which
command:
The output shows that tree
is located in /usr/local/bin
:
Run the tree
command to see the version:
The version prints to the screen, indicating it’s installed:
Occasionally, you’ll want to upgrade an existing package. Use the brew upgrade
command, followed by the package name:
You can run brew upgrade
with no additional arguments to upgrade all programs and packages Homebrew manages.
When you install a new version, Homebrew keeps the older version around. After a while, you might want to reclaim disk space by removing these older copies. Run brew cleanup
to remove all old versions of your Homebrew-managed software.
To remove a package you’re no longer using, use brew uninstall
. To uninstall the tree
command, execute this command:
The output shows that the package was removed:
You can use Homebrew to install desktop applications too.
Step 5 — Installing Desktop Applications
You’re not restricted to using Homebrew for command-line tools. Homebrew Cask lets you install desktop applications. This feature is included with Homebrew, so there’s nothing additional to install.
Test it out by using Homebrew to install Visual Studio Code. Execute the following command in your terminal:
The application will install:
You’ll find the application in your Applications
folder, just as if you’d installed it manually.
To remove it, use brew uninstall
:
Homebrew will remove the installed software:
It performs a backup first in case the removal fails, but once the program is fully uninstalled, the backup is removed as well.
Step 6 — Uninstalling Homebrew
If you no longer need Homebrew, you can use its uninstall script.
Download the uninstall script with curl
:
As always, review the contents of the script with the less
command to verify the script’s contents:
Once you’ve verified the script, execute the script with the --help
flag to see the various options you can use:
The options display on the screen:
Use the -d
flag to see what the script will do:
The script will list everything it will delete:
When you’re ready to remove everything, execute the script without any flags:
This removes Homebrew and any programs you’ve installed with it.
Conclusion
In this tutorial you installed and used Homebrew on your Mac. You can now use Homebrew to install command line tools, programming languages, and other utilities you’ll need for software development.
Homebrew has many packages you can install. Visit the official list to search for your favorite programs.
The easiest way to install a number of Unix style applications and open source software onto macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave and earlier Sierra OS versions is via a package manager, unfortunately, macOS Big Sur doesn’t come with one, but fortunately, some good folks care, they come in the form of Homebrew.
The install of Homebrew also works on macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, (High)Sierra, El Capitan, and Yosemite, so macOS 10.10 – 10.14
Homebrew isn’t the only option, also available is MacPorts and Fink but Homebrew is the newest and most popular of the trio.
Install Homebrew
To download install Homebrew run the install script on the command line as below and let the script do its thing:
If you don’t have Apples Xcode Command Line Tools installed it will alert you to that it will install it and carry on with the Homebrew installation and download the Command Line Tools you will need to enter your admin password at some point.
Then Homebrew is installed.
After this Homebrew is installed and ready to install other apps.
To get started run brew help can give some command example usage.
To check for any issues with the Homebrew install run:
One issue that typically comes up is an outdated or missing version of Xcode.
For the latest macOS, brew doctor will warn that the Homebrew install won’t be 100% if Xcode is not up to date, so update Xcode from the App Store.
To search for an application:
To install
To list all apps installed by Homebrew
To remove an installed application
To update Homebrew itself
To see what packages are out of date but not to upgrade them
To see what upgrade packages all or singular
To hold a package at a certain version
To release a package from a certain version
To see what else you can do
Where does Homebrew install stuff …. in the Cellar
Where the brew lives.
You can see your Homebrew configuration by running
The output should be similar to …
All installations via Homebrew are filed independently in the filing system in /usr/local/Cellar and linked into /usr/local/bin which is a directory which allows you to run these commands and apps as if part of the regular operating system.
This directory is also out of the SIP bounds so there should be no authentication macOS error dialog boxes.
Remove Home-brew and all packages
To remove the Home-brew installation and all packages it has installed..
HomeBrew is a great package manager just start installing some apps and explore.!