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 good 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.
A guide to Homebrew, the best package manager for Mac. Homebrew is an alternative to Mac App Store which installs apps, tools, and everything you need. The Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux). It's all Git and Ruby underneath, so hack away with the knowledge that you can easily revert your modifications and merge upstream updates. If I'm working on Mac, can I send my file to an accountant who is on Windows? Manager data is cross-compatible across all operating systems. We have a helpful guide which explains how to make backup and restore on another computer. What happens to my data when I upgrade?
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.
NuGet Package Manager In Solution Explorer, right-click Dependencies and choose Add Packages. Choose 'nuget.org' as the Package source in the top left corner of the dialog, and search for Newtonsoft.Json, select that package in the list, and select Add Packages.
In this tutorial you’ll install and use Homebrew on your Mac.
Prerequisites
You will need a macOS computer running High Sierra or higher with administrative access and an internet connection.
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.
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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 -
for--failflag tells the Terminal window to give no HTML document output on server errors. - The
-sor--silentflag mutescurlso that it does not show the progress meter, and combined with the-Sor--show-errorflag it will ensure thatcurlshows an error message if it fails. - The
-Lor--locationflag will tellcurlto 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
-oswitch specifies a local filename for the file.
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 look at the installation script:
Once you’re comfortable with the contents of the script, execute the script with the bash command:
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. If you’re using Bash, you’ll use the file ~/.bash_profile:
However, if you’re using ZSH, you’ll open the file ~/.zshrc.
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 .bash_profile, execute this command:
If you modified .zshrc, 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
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.
To use Homebrew to install Visual Studio Code, execute the following command:
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 cask 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.
In Windows, you get the .exe files for installation. You download it, install the software, and forget about it. There is no native app to track whether the software has an update. Here’s where a package manager comes in. Linux has RPM (RedHat Package Manager) for Package Management. But, RPM deals with .tar packages which are a universal packaging format for Linux.
While in Windows, we have something like NuGet packages which is still in the initial phases. You can expect a good package manager in further updates but as of now, there is a dire need of one. So, here is a list of best Package Manager for Windows which kind of replicates RPM for you.
Read: How to Disable Windows Firewall With Command Line
Windows Package Manager
1. OneGet (aka PackageManagement)
Let’s start with PackageManagement, formerly known as OneGet. I really liked the old name OneGet so let us just pretend it is not renamed. It comes built into Powershell Version 2.0 though it’s not the official package manager. It’s still in the early phases but Windows would start pushing it sooner or later. It downloads the packages from repositories like Powershell Gallery, NuGet.org, etc.
You can just go to PowerShell and type get-command -module PackageManagement. It will bring up the supported commands and if nothing shows up, you better enable Microsoft Powershell 2.0. Installing packages is as simple as Install-Package googlechrome. It fetches the exe file from the server installs it and done. No need for any manual effort.
The only bummer is you cannot update apps via cmdlets. So, apart from the Microsoft Store, this is one more thing you should be excited about in the future.
Number of packages: 142,585
Interface: Command Line only
Visit NuGet.org (free)
2. winget
winget is Microsoft’s latest package manager in the making. It’s easy and works exactly like the Linux-style package manager. To install winget, you have 2 options as of now:
- Install the Insider build of Windows 10 by signing up on the Windows Package Manager Insiders Program. Next, install an update for the App Installer package from the Microsoft Store.
- Alternatively, you can download winget from this GitHub page. Download the “.appxbundle” file and double-click on it to install it. I would prefer this method as it doesn’t require you to switch to an unstable windows variant.
A third-party developer has made a GUI front of Windows Package Manager called winstall. It lets you bulk install Windows app quickly with winget.
Installing a file is as easy as “winget install <app-name>”. Additionally, you can search for software on the repository by typing “winget search <app-name>”. Currently, it’s only available for the developers to publish their packages but you could expect a more robust tool in the future.
Number of packages: 100+
Interface: Command Line only/ GUI (third-party)
3. Scoop
The problem with package management is that the cmdlets are complex. This brings Scoop in the picture. Scoop is a small open-source utility for PowerShell. You need to have a minimum of version 3.0. So, the commands to install software is as simple as scoop install firefox. To install Scoop, you just need to type the following in the Powershell.
The best thing about Scoop is that it installs the packages in your Home folder so it doesn’t require Administrator access. The first thing you need to know about Scoop is that it doesn’t work like a package manager but rather as a file parser. In simple terms, it downloads the said app from the URL mentioned in the JSON file. These files are present on Github and can be modified by anyone. So, if you want Scoop to support any other software, you can just edit the manifest file on GitHub. It also supports SSH as well as the proxy servers.
You can also install software of a specific version by just appending the software name with “@version”.Scoop is a good utility to have but I would still pass on it because of the limited package support.
Number of packages: 440
Interface: Command Line only
Download Scoop (free)
4. AppGet (cmd)
Based on the same concept of file parsing, we have AppGet. Instead of JSON, it works with YAML files and has a bigger repository of apps. AppGet works with the command prompt as well as PowerShell and in order to start using it, you have to download the exe file. Once you have installed it, go to C:ProgramDataAppGet and open command prompt from there. You can begin installing apps with a simple command like “appget install firefox”.
The GitHub repository of AppGet is better categorized compared to Scoop. It also has some extra cmdlets like outdated which checks for an update of the said app. You can also perform batch updates but this option must be implemented from an Administrator tab.
AppGet doesn’t provide management of apps that are previously installed and also there is no GUI version of it.
Number of packages: 800+
Interface: Command Line only
Download App-Get (free)
5. Npackd (GUI & cmd)
NPackd is another option that not only provides a command-line interface but even a GUI application. Unlike any other app in this list, NPackd is the only one that supports the managing of the apps you have previously installed. You can also update those apps or uninstall them. NPackd is also open source so you can go ahead and add your own packages on GitHub.
Like AppGet and Scoop, NPackd also doesn’t require administrative access. You can just browse the GUI for the app, right-click, and install it. It has a better package availability than the apps mentioned above. On top of the basic features, you also get package addition within the app. You can directly add packages without pushing or editing a file on GitHub. Ohh, I almost missed this one in the Settings which is why this should have been in the front. You can also add your own FTP server address or repository from where Npackd can fetch files. The repository address needs to be an XML file with the URL and package name.
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In my prolonged testing, I found a small glitch. When I uninstall an application, the app sometimes tries to randomly uninstall several applications which were already uninstalled. The fix is to restart your machine like any other Windows fix.
Number of packages: 1435
Interface: Command Line/ GUI
Download NPackd (free)
6. Ninite pro (GUI)
I am sure you would have heard of Ninite. It is a web app that lets you club a bunch of software together in a single executable file. And then just in one go, you are installing several apps. But how does that make Ninite a package manager? It doesn’t let you update apps right! Well, you have Ninite pro for that starting at 1$/per user per month.
You need to register on the website and then you can use the trial version for 15 days. The next step is to download the agent software on all of your machines. As soon as you are done with that, the web app will show up those systems. What actually happens is that the web app communicates with the local agent software to retrieve the installed package data which is why it is important to get it installed. You can also use the Ninite Pro classic standalone app which you should if you are dealing with Active Directory. It has an extra tab for locating machines in the network. But the app feels old with lesser options than the web app.
Once you are done with the setup, you can install, uninstall, or update apps for the entire system in your network with a single click. It’s extremely smooth and seamless. I really cannot emphasize much on the seamlessness Ninite Pro brings to the table. If you are looking for a total network package manager, this is a good choice.
The only downside I feel is the lack of packages when compared with Chocolatey.
Number of packages: 1000+
Interface: GUI (web app only)
Visit Ninite pro (paid 1$/per user/ per month)
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7. Chocolatey (cmd & GUI)
The name sounds amusing but you better take this app seriously. Chocolatey has the largest app repository and it supports PowerShell, command line, and even GUI. You name it and Chocolatey has that app. To install, you just need to type the following in command prompt and hit enter.
Once done, just type choco install chocolatey and it will install the GUI for you. You can now simply install the packages from GUI or CLI, it’s the same. The pro and business variants are different and they provide some additional features like deploying our own package, malware protection, Package auditor, etc.
A small issue I would like to point out is that it only supports NuGet packages. So, if you have to deploy your own app you need to convert it into a NuGet package. Also, the GUI is half baked and not all the CLI features are present in it.
Number of packages: 6336 (open source).
Interface: Command Line only
Download Chocolatey (free)
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Which Windows Package Manager should you choose?
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If you need a package manager for a network, Ninite pro should be the choice. It’s so seamless that I have installed apps on my own system without even realizing it. For individual usage, Chocolatey is a good choice. You can also try out AppGet or NPackd since they have a different model. Voice out your queries in the comments and I will be happy to help you out.
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Also Read: Best Windows Utilities You Should Be Using In 2019.