Homebrew

What is it?

Homebrew is a popular package manager for Mac OSX. Package managers make it easier to install and update software on your computer.

The basics of Homebrew are outlined below. You can go to the Homebrew website and the Homebrew GitHub Page to learn more.

Installation

To install Homebrew, you need to have Command Line Tools for Xcode installed. It comes with Xcode. If you don't want to download Xcode, you can run this command:

xcode-select --install

or download it from here.

Then, run the following command in the Terminal to install Homebrew:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

To make sure that everything worked, run this:

brew doctor

Usage

Install a package:

brew install <package name>

For example, one way to install git on a Mac is to run this:

brew install git

Uninstall a package:

brew uninstall <package name>

brew uninstall <package name> --force # to uninstall all versions

To remove old versions of packages:

brew cleanup

List all installed packages:

brew list

Update Homebrew:

brew update

Upgrade packages:

brew upgrade # to upgrade all packages

brew upgrade <package name> # to upgrade a particular package