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Setting-up a Mac

Last updated on 04 December 2022

This note documents my setup for building a sane-ish (for me) software environment on macOS for work, development, and life.

Core tasks

• Rename the Mac (Settings -> General -> Name)
• Add home directory to Mac sidebar (from terminal run open /Users and then drag homedir to the sidebar)
• Add accounts to macOS Accounts (for mail, contacts, calendars)

Install desktop apps

From the App Store install and configure:

• Tailscale [1]

=> 1

• Sorted [2]

=> 2

• Reeder [3]

=> 3

• Telegram [4]

=> 4

From publisher websites, install and configure:

• Firefox [5]

=> 5

• Nova [6]

=> 6

• Hyper [7]

=> 7

• Joplin [8]

=> 8

• Nextcloud [9]

=> 9

• Docker Desktop [10]

=> 10

Configure apps

• Login to apps (e.g. Tailscale, Docker, Reeder, Telegram, Firefox, Nextcloud, Joplin).
• Make Firefox default browser

Install command line tools

• Install homebrew: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" (and follow instructions)
• Install brew tools: brew install fish python3 git s3cmd
• Install python deps: pip3 install poetry virtualenv
• Install MongoDB: brew tap mongodb/brew && brew update && brew install mongodb-community@6.0
• Install fisher [11]: curl -sL https://git.io/fisher | source && fisher install jorgebucaran/fisher

=> 11

• Install nvm: fisher install jorgebucaran/nvm.fish
• Install node: nvm install latest
• Install yarn: npm install --global yarn

Install configurations

Once Nextcloud is installed and synced, install dotfiles:

• ln -s ~/Nextcloud/dotfiles/.config ~/.config
• ln -s ~/Nextcloud/dotfiles/.hyper.js ~/.hyper.js
• ln -s ~/Nextcloud/dotfiles/.vimrc ~/.vimrc

Configure fish

• Add the shell: echo /usr/local/bin/fish | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
• Change default shell: chsh -s /usr/local/bin/fish

Configure Hyper

Open Hyper preference window, then:

• Set the shell param to: /opt/homebrew/bin/fish
• To the plugins array add 'hyper-solarized-light'

Configuring virtualenvs in fish

Create a virtualenv in the usual way: virtualenv -p python3.10 .venv.

To use virtualenvs in fish start commands with: .venv/bin/, e.g.:

• .venv/bin/pip install poetry
• .venv/bin/poetry install
• .venv/bin/flask run

(As of writing .venv/bin/activate.fish does not work for me).

Run local MongoDB

For development.

• Create data dir: mkdir ~/.mongo
• Start in background: mongod --fork --dbpath=/Users/will/.mongo --logpath /dev/null --bind_ip localhost

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