You use the brew command to install any of the command-line utilities packaged up in Homebrew. Homebrew boasts of being an application that "installs the stuff you need that didn't" by default. Free online course: RHEL Technical Overview.Commands are well organized, as the default Help output shows: I'm already learning a lot as I transition to more open source alternatives for my past proprietary tools, and keeping something familiar-like Homebrew-helps me focus on learning one thing at a time instead of being overwhelmed by all the differences between operating systems.Īlso, I have yet to see a package manager that is as kind to the user as Homebrew. So why do I stick with Homebrew? First off, it's incredibly familiar to me. I have spent a decent amount of time using all these technologies, and I have to say each one is powerful in its own right. Debian-based systems already have apt, Fedora-systems have dnf and yum, and projects like Flatpak and AppImage work to span the gap by running smoothly on both. Why Homebrew on Linux?Ī reasonable first response to Homebrew from long-time Linux users is: "Why not just use…" where the next word is a package manager for their preferred version of Linux. Because I've been on a journey to migrate from Mac to Linux, I have been looking at how my favorite open source applications for macOS perform on Linux, and I've been happy to find that Homebrew's support for Linux truly shines. Its users quickly fell in love with its friendly interface and helpful prompts, and-in what may seem like a strange twist of fate-it got ported to Linux.Īt first, there were two separate projects for macOS and Linux (Homebrew and Linuxbrew), but now Homebrew's core manages both operating systems.
The Homebrew project began its life as an unofficial Linux-style package manager for the Mac.