- you have way more packages on any Linux package manager.
And Homebrew tends to be more up to date then most distribution repositories. Especially if I want to have a stable OS.
Linux package managers do not mess with /usr/local as expected in a UNIX compatible OS. Homebrew does.
You can install Homebrew in another directory, it works fine.
Linux package managers are an integral part of the OS environment and update process
Which is bad. Application updates are typically tied to base system package updates. Either you use some stable branch (like Debian) stable and you are stuck with old software. Or you use some rolling release, but then your kernel, X11, Gtk+, or whatever could break.
Decoupling the installation of applications from the base operating system is a good thing.
- Aptitude, for example, gets rid of older versions of packages, while Homebrew keeps all previous versions and simply changes the symlink.
brew cleanup
...and old versions are removed and downloads are cleared. Also, you can add the --cleanup flag to upgrade and it will remove old versions. I prefer Homebrew's approach here, because it's easier to rollback.
While compiling from source is nothing wrong, it can take a lot of time depending on what you are building.
Luckily, Homebrew bottles most software that has long compile times. I have a MacBook with a Core M processor and install times have never been a problem (and I have installed Boost, Rust, and ghc, to name just a few larger things).
> Decoupling the installation of applications from the base operating system is a good thing.
How is that a good thing if an application needs some core OS features that are not available in its current state? Newer libraries become available for all software and benefit from the upgrades. And yeah, sometimes some things break, but it's easy enough to roll back to a previous library version if you need to, instead of bloating the system with multiple versions of different libraries.
> You can install Homebrew in another directory, it works fine.
But it's not its default. How many users change its directory ?
> And Homebrew tends to be more up to date then most distribution repositories. Especially if I want to have a stable OS.
Honestly you can't compete with AUR (Arch) on that level.
And Homebrew tends to be more up to date then most distribution repositories. Especially if I want to have a stable OS.
Linux package managers do not mess with /usr/local as expected in a UNIX compatible OS. Homebrew does.
You can install Homebrew in another directory, it works fine.
Linux package managers are an integral part of the OS environment and update process
Which is bad. Application updates are typically tied to base system package updates. Either you use some stable branch (like Debian) stable and you are stuck with old software. Or you use some rolling release, but then your kernel, X11, Gtk+, or whatever could break.
Decoupling the installation of applications from the base operating system is a good thing.
- Aptitude, for example, gets rid of older versions of packages, while Homebrew keeps all previous versions and simply changes the symlink.
...and old versions are removed and downloads are cleared. Also, you can add the --cleanup flag to upgrade and it will remove old versions. I prefer Homebrew's approach here, because it's easier to rollback.While compiling from source is nothing wrong, it can take a lot of time depending on what you are building.
Luckily, Homebrew bottles most software that has long compile times. I have a MacBook with a Core M processor and install times have never been a problem (and I have installed Boost, Rust, and ghc, to name just a few larger things).