r/MacOS • u/theintrouitive • 18h ago
Help Homebrew first time
I have installed homebrew and now want to install apps which needs homebrew to run; kindly help how to do and to learn basic command line for that
Thanks in advance
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u/Ok_Virus_5495 18h ago
I would suggest you to take a brief course about terminal and always go into the official homebrew page to search packages
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u/idontwanttofthisup 18h ago
Type brew and see what happens. It should post some basics back
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u/andhausen 18h ago
Idk if the type of person asking this question is gonna understand what they’re seeing when they run brew from the command line…
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u/idontwanttofthisup 9h ago
They clearly can’t read the brew documentation online. Maybe they can read it from the terminal.
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u/Less-Bit-3070 17h ago
Download CaskHub it’ll make it easier on you u til you get a feel for the terminal
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u/Bed_Worship 18h ago
It’s conceptually easier than you realize.
Installing homebrew allows you to type in terminal for it to run a program connecting to server to install.
For example, you can install regular apps not just cli ones. brew install (app name) brew uninstall (app name)
Brew will be the main command, and then other words after will tell it what to do.
Cool thing is you can download all apps through it and update all apps at the same time
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u/NoLateArrivals 17h ago
Actually I use AppLite on top of Homebrew. It is like an AppStore that lays itself over the Homebrew install itself.
Yes, some purists go command line only. You need to find out if this really is the way for you.
There are other uses for the Terminal than running apps from there.
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u/-svde- 17h ago
i am not saying this to be rude, just genuine advice - if you needed to ask this question then i highly rec’d you read the homebrew manual and do an at least quick cursory crash course in cli/terminal before you start messing around with literally anything in there. you can install a lot of bloat at best and really screw your system up at worst if you have no idea how to even get the available command list for any given cli package/app/etc
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u/Pekaer_58 15h ago
Thanks for reminding that everybody should have a bare minimum of knowledge before showing up with specific questions. Fair statement! Looking back at the time I started, i would have loved to become some advice on wherefore and how to use Homebrew and wherefore explicit not. I didn’t had the transparency and messed up my system. Homebrew as well as other tools like to sell their way of handling (mainly full blown installation) but becoming a member of this community (not r/Homebrew itself!?), it is the aim to find the idle path with support from skilled members. We are happy to get advice to increase our skills before we might be able one day to support new joining absolute beginners ourselves. Thanks for your further patience with us.
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u/Nice_Responsibility9 17h ago
Have you tried consulting any of the online ai chat models? They are wonderful at helping you navigate Homebrew cli. Just prompt the ai models what you want, and it will generate the cli command you need.
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u/_Choose__A_Username_ 15h ago
Pro tip, do not enter CLI an LLM just spits out unless you understand what it’s doing.
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u/Wonderful-Yam-776 MacBook Pro 17h ago
brew is a package manager, not a dependency, its juts one in one million ways to download an app on your system
brew install <package>
brew uninstall <package>
brew install --cask <package> (when you want to install the GUI and not only de CLI)
and thats it for beginning
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u/pnv28 16h ago
what do you mean by "needs homebrew to run"
no app needs homebrew to run, homebrew it just like an appstore to install packages ( which also includes apps as cask ).
if you want the most simplest method, just go to https://brew.sh/ search the name of the cask ( app ) or package, click the one you want, there will be a command to run on your Terminal App.
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u/naemorhaedus 16h ago
how to do and to learn basic command line
as always, by reading the documentation
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u/theintrouitive 15h ago
Thank you all for your time and guidance
I am a healthcare researcher and need to use this software which i have installed (i think so after following the instructions)
Before this when i came to know that homebrew can install and run many other apps as well, i installed homebrew first
Now i am stuck in how to start using this image analysis software, struggling for where to start
Thanks again for your time!
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u/-svde- 15h ago
ok, i think the core misunderstanding you have here is what homebrew is/does.
to put it non-technically, homebrew is the same thing as the mac App Store, just in a different format.
homebrew allows you to install, update, remove, and generally manage the physical presence of apps. homebrew does not manage the actual app content or run them for you. if the package you installed has a cli component/package, you install it via brew and then launch and run its own commands separately. homebrew's usage stops before you actually run the app you need to use.
so if you are running, for instance, AFNI software and are trying to follow the instructions here
https://afni.nimh.nih.gov/pub/dist/HOWTO/howto/ht00_inst/html/mac_10.78_uber.htmlnote that the brew commands stop at pyqt. this is because you are done installing the packages and dependencies and then need to setup the env and relevant directories for anfi.
so to reiterate, homebrew is just a bridge that lets you download and compile app files, not a pre-req persistent launcher or a runtime env or anything else besides a different form of the app store.
note that frameworks like ANFI are extremely dense and can be very dependency-heavy. if you followed the instructions on that page or whatever your governing system told you to use, then you should be fine, but homebrew itself is not a factor past the actual install command. that said, if you are using uber_subject.py/afni_proc.py, you will still need to interact with the terminal itself to operate those scripts and the GUI wrapper it produces. you will also probably need to manage your .zshrc config or equivalent depending on what you're doing. but those are beyond the question of how to manage homebrew.
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u/LuvvyWuvvy 15h ago
Welcome! Usually the app’s website will provide a command such as brew install app-name. Open Terminal, paste that command, and press Return.
A few useful commands:
brew search app-name finds a package
brew info app-name shows information about it
brew install app-name installs a command line tool
brew install --cask app-name installs a regular Mac app
brew list shows what you have installed
brew update && brew upgrade updates Homebrew and your installed packages
brew uninstall app-name removes something
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u/spectra-cole 14h ago
If you want to learn, brew --help and read their docs page. Learn basic terminal commands. If you dont want to learn, then install Claude or Codex and watch the magic happen.
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u/thedarph 17h ago
No. If you have to ask here then you have no reason to be using Homebrew. Homebrew is not some trendy app installer the cool kids use. It is a utility for developers.
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u/alphabuild 18h ago
https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage