from Hacker News

Homebrew on Linux

by rhim on 8/26/22, 6:14 AM with 2 comments

  • by Normille on 8/26/22, 7:49 AM

    I've just recently switched from Homebrew to MacPorts on OSX, after using Homebrew for as long as I can remember.

    I got sick of having to wait several minutes for homebrew to crank into action and check for updates every time I fired it up and also the fact that they've been actively deprecating older versions of OSX. [Im still happily using Mojave on my antiquated laptop and desktop].

    Then there were the build times which, in some cases, would take hours and leave my laptop hot enough to fry eggs on.

    Since switching to MacPorts [fingers crossed!] I've had no problems so far; It checks for updates much quicker. It never has problems finding versions of software which will run on Mojave [and it doesn't keep warning me that I'm "on my own" for running an older version of OSX!]. Install times are much faster, as MacPorts favours pre-built binaries.

    The only issues I've had so far have been a few obscure edge cases, such as VSCodium plugins where they've stopped working and I've needed to update the binaries they're configured to point to, away from /usr/local/bin/ [Homebrew] to /opt/local/bin/ [MacPorts].

    I could [in the past] see the need for Homebrew on OSX. But I certainly don't have any intention of letting it anywhere near any of my Linux boxes. Especially as they already have decent package management built in.

  • by simonblack on 8/27/22, 2:21 AM

    'Private' software (software that's only being used/installed by one user, rather than being installed for system-wide usage) should be installed to ~/.local/bin.

    You shouldn't need to install something like Homebrew to do that. The words 'sledgehammer' and 'walnut' spring to mind.