#Quick Start Using Homebrew on Mac OS X
Written 2016-01-01 by @mikeschinkel
Homebrew is a Package Manager for Mac OS X similar to what you'll find for Linux.
According to Wikipedia a Package Manager is:
"A software tool that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner."
Thus HomeBrew is:
A command line tool that allows you to easily download and install other software packages for your Mac in a simple and easy to learn commands in Terminal.
##Installing Homebrew
To install Homebrew on Mac OS X run:
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
##Running Diagnostics
After installing you'll want to run diagnostics and attempt to fix any of the errors or warnings (Google is your friend here.) Note fixing the warnings might break over software you have installed but using Homebrew to reinstall the broken software will resolve most issues:
brew doctor
Once "Your system is ready to brew" you can start installing packages.
##Installing Packages
Installing a package is as simple as typing brew install <package_name>. If you are a web developer some of the packages you might want to install are here (unless you already have them installed):
brew install git
brew install wget
brew install node
brew install npm
brew install iterm2
Hint: Definitely switch to using iTerm2 instead of the default OS X terminal program as soon as you install it.
##Finding Packages To discover packages simply search to list all available packages:
brew search
You can also visit several websites that provide more information about available packages:
##Updating Homebrew Homebrew is continuously being updated to its best to update and then run the doctor prior to using another other Homebrew commands if you have not recently done so:
brew update
brew doctor
##Adding Casks for Applications You will probably also want to install the Homebrew "Casks" which can extends Homebrew to allow it to install OS X applications and large binaries in addition to command line tools:
brew tap caskroom/cask
##Finding Applications in Casks Once you have Caskroom tapped you can find applications with search.
For example if you where looking for Google's Chrome:
$ brew cask search chrome
==> Partial matches
chrome-devtools epichrome
chrome-remote-desktop-host google-chrome
If you'd like a quick gander at the over 2500 Casks available from Caskroom.io as of this writing click here.
##Installing Applications from Casks To install Google's Chrome (although you probably already have it!):
brew cask install google-chrome
Another application you might not have that a software developer definitely should be using is Vagrant:
brew cask install vagrant
If you are not familiar with it you can learn more about Vagrant here.
##More about Homebrew and Casks Now that you've finished your quick start of Homebrew you can start your journey to learn more about Homebrew and Caskroom here, respectively: