This guide helps to setup a new macbook and make it ready for software development.

Make it yours : (Change the Laptop Name):

I use the following command to change the macbook name in case it’s promping a wrong username:

sudo scutil --set HostName name-you-want

Developers Tools

Xcode

The first step is to install developer tools on the new laptop wihout installing Xcode (it’s very large cannot afford to download it)

  • Open the terminal
  • type the following one and follow the prompt :
xcode-select --install

follow this link for a precise step by step guide .

Terminal

The second step is to get rid of the default mac terminal and install a powerfull and customizable terminal; my choice is a combinaison of zsh and iterm2, for zsh customization I use oh-my-zsh

let install it we need curl :

  • For iterm2 brew cask install iterm2

  • For Zsh and zsh completions brew install zsh zsh-completions

  • And oh my zsh c:

    sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

And now we can customize it as we need

The default configuration can be edited and customized from the file .zshrc More about the terminal configuration can be found here.

  • For customization i prefer using dracula theme for both vscode and iterm, it like a universal theme

Package Manager Homebrew

Third step is to install package manager homebrew: About homebrew:

Homebrew a free and open-source software package management system that simplifies the installation of software on Apple’s macOS operating system

I will need this software to install most of the software I’m going to work with.

From their official site it’s said that :

_Homebrew installs the stuff you need that Apple didn’t.

that is the reason why it’s not embedeed directly with ios like apt-get in linux or ubuntu os.

let us install it. As homebrew is written in ruby we will install it with this simple comand:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Once homebrew is installed we can install everything according to your needs.

Useful Softwares

I run the following comand to install the first set of softwares I need to work on my new laptop:

 brew cask install slack zoomus google-chrome visual-studio-code spotify google-backup-and-sync

They are the most important software I use :

  • slack is my office
  • zoom is my phone
  • google chrome and vscode are my axes
  • and Spotify They are the most important software for me , everything else can be installed from google chrome

Programing Softwares

Python

For me as, I’m a pyhton developer I will install everything related to python :

  • let install python3 and python 2

  • python 2 I use brew install python@2

  • python 3 I’m a big fan of python 3.6.5 because for now it’s the only version supported by tensorflow.

brew install --ignore-dependencies https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/f2a764ef944b1080be64bd88dca9a1d80130c558/Formula/python.rb

JavaScript

Node the latest version brew install node

Synchronize .zshrc file

To avoid rewriting the settings each time , I setup a new macbook, let me keep them synchronize to google drive.

  • I made sure I have Google drive sync installed in my laptop
  • Check if a folder Called Google Drive is in The home directory
  • Create a folder for configuration with : mkdir -p ~/Google\ Drive/ohmyzsh-conf
  • Make a copy for the existing file in case : cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.copy
  • Move the original file to the google drive folder : mv .zshrc ~/Google\ Drive/ohmyzsh-conf/.zshrc
  • Make a symbolic link from that file with the original configuration : ln -s ~/Google\ Drive/ohmyzsh-conf/.zshrc .zshrc