Package Managers - not the evil kind of PMs

Intro

If you come from planet Linux you’ve used a package manager before, pacman on Archlinux, apt on Debian/Ubuntu, each distro has it’s own beast, you already know how powerful and productive they are, now the time has come to use them on your other workstation 😄

🍻 But first, an ode to them!

In the land of coding, where software abounds,
Where apps and updates are always around,
A hero emerged, to manage it all,
A package manager, standing tall!

With Scoop for Windows, and Homebrew for Mac,
These package managers kept software on track,
Installations were simple, updates were too,
Making life easier for me and for you.

So hail to the package managers, we say,
For keeping our software up-to-date each day,
We honor your efforts, your skill, your might,
And thank you for making our coding lives bright!

…generated by ChatGPT

Package managers are essential tools that make it easy for developers and users to install, update, and manage software applications on their computers, not only command line tools buthuge apps like browsers and IDEs. Two of the most popular package managers are Scoop for Windows and Homebrew for macOS.

Scoop

What does Scoop do?

Scoop installs programs from the command line with a minimal amount of friction. It:

• Eliminates permission popup windows
• Hides GUI wizard-style installers
• Prevents PATH pollution from installing lots of programs
• Avoids unexpected side-effects from installing and uninstalling programs
• Finds and installs dependencies automatically
• Performs all the extra setup steps itself to get a working program

Scoop is very scriptable, so you can run repeatable setups to get your environment just the way you like, e.g.:

scoop install sudo
sudo scoop install 7zip git openssh --global
scoop install aria2 curl grep sed less touch
scoop install python ruby go perl

That’s from the official page, but, having installed some packages the first time ¹ what I usually do each time I log in Windows is:

scoop update *
scoop cleanup *

Homebrew

Features, usage and installation instructions are summarised on the homepage. Terminology (e.g. the difference between a Cellar, Tap, Cask and so forth) is explained here.

What Packages Are Available?

• type brew formulae for a list.
• or visit formulae.brew.sh to browse packages online.

More Documentation

brew help, man brew or check our documentation

Bonus 🥁

If you come from Windows there’s a free (not open-source) tool called Patch My PC Home Updater that installs a large list of apps with an easy user interface, what’s cool about it?
That the apps are already hand-picked and that they are fully categorized! You can find very useful freeware tools there 😉

Both package managers are awesome, try them and remember, I told you so™️
It would be great if you can support the authors in a way, too.\

In case you want to try more package managers there are Fink and MacPorts for macOS and Chokolatey for Windows.

Update: I found out that there’s an official Windows tool : winget
Very convenient since it scans all your (already) installed apps !