A couple of days ago I bought a MacBookPro and so I switched from Ubuntu to MacOS. Unfortunately Apple did not ship their unix-version with a package-manager. After a google search I found two alternatives. MacPorts and Homebrew. The press for MacPorts seems not as good as for Homebrew, so I gave Homebrew a try.

For both you need Xcode to be installed:(
UPDATE: At least for Homebrew this is no longer true – see Homebrew without Xcode – save 1.5 GB

sudo curl -L http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/tarball/master | sudo tar xz --strip 1 -C /usr/local

Done! This commands will download homebrew and extract it into /usr/local. Some advise you to change the owner of /usr/local. I don’t and add a sudo when I install something. Time to demonstrate it:

sudo brew install maven

Maven is installed. Try mvn --version. If you want to know what is extracted and installed use the verbose mode:

sudo brew -v install maven

The most common things you will need are available: maven, gradle, git, groovy, all there. If s.th. is missing the support reacts quiet fast. Check the so called formulas if your required package is available.

Next, I tried to uninstall a package. Works as it should.

So far I’m happy and recommend it.