After many years of being a Linux user, my family got me a Macbook towards the end of my PhD so I could write my dissertation (my old laptop was physically disintegrating at that point). I wasn’t sure what tools to set up, so this post is to keep track of my “how to set up a new Mac” list so I can do it faster next time.
Most of this is based on advice from Giordon Stark with assistance from Sebastian Dziallas, Emily Wang, and Ian Smith, but I’ve tweaked some things based on my own preferences.
- https://atom.io/ (text editor)
- https://www.spectacleapp.com/ (keyboard shortcuts for moving windows)
- https://www.iterm2.com/ (terminal app)
- don’t forget to copy over your SSH keys!
- https://brew.sh/ (Mac package manager, which you’ll use to install a bunch of other things)
- brew install python3
- brew install ack
- brew install hub
- https://www.skype.com/en/
- https://www.google.com/chrome/
- https://slack.com/
- hhttps://zulip.com/
- https://justgetflux.com/
- https://dropbox.com/
- https://lastpass.com/
- https://www.zotero.org/
I use all of the above regularly. The following things are still new to me, but the guys have suggested I check them out.
- brew install coreutils
- brew install highlight
- brew cask install qlcolorcode qlstephen qlmarkdown quicklook-json qlimagesize webpquicklook suspicious-package quicklookase qlvideo
- https://conda.io/en/latest/
- https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html (I might try Alfred later if I’m not wholly enthralled)
Giordon also (keeps his dotfiles on github)[https://github.com/kratsg/dotfiles] (bashrc, vimrc, etc.), which is brilliant and which I should probably emulate.