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First Steps on Mac

You've got a new mac or installed a fresh OS on it. 👍

Finder

There are several things I like configured in the Finder:

  • I want to see all objects on my desktop including interal drives and conntected servers
  • Opening a new window should show my home folder
  • The sidebar should show my computer with all its drives, disks and servers (not scriptable)
  • Name-Suffix should be shown
  • Sorting should clip folders above files
  • Objects should be deleted after 30 days moving to the trash

And because doing this manual every time here is command line settings for all of that:

# Desktop: Show all objects (internal and external drives, servers)
defaults write com.apple.finder ShowHardDrivesOnDesktop -bool true
defaults write com.apple.finder ShowMountedServersOnDesktop -bool true

# Finder: New window opens in Home folder
defaults write com.apple.finder NewWindowTarget -string "PfHm"
defaults write com.apple.finder NewWindowTargetPath -string "file://${HOME}/"

# Extensions: Show file extensions
defaults write com.apple.finder ShowAllNameExtensions -bool true

# Sorting: Show folders above files
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXSortFoldersFirst -bool true

# Trash: Delete items after 30 days
defaults write com.apple.finder FXRemoveOldTrashItems -bool true

killall Finder

Terminal

Brew

The holy grail of package management on mac.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Oh my zsh

Thanks to one of my collegues here for showing it to me. Since I've seen I don't want to miss it. Oh My ZSH is an extension to the zsh interpreter which add some fancy support. On top of that I've added powerlevel10k, a flavour and theme that adds some fancy color to it.

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
curl --output MesloLGS_NF_Regular.ttf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Regular.ttf
curl --output MesloLGS_NF_Bold.ttf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Bold.ttf
curl --output MesloLGS_NF_Italic.ttf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Italic.ttf
curl --output MesloLGS_NF_Bold_Italic.ttf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Bold%20Italic.ttf
open *.ttf &
brew install powerlevel10k

After installing you should set your font MesloLGS NF inside your Terminal. Then: 

p10k configure

Additional Command Line Tools

I want different terminal tools to be present on my my here is the current list of them and what they do.

  • uv: Simplifing a virtual python environment by creating a distinct folder structure, managing a list of installed dependencies (compareable to a requirements.txt), allowing different python versions
  • kubectl: Managing kubernetes cluster
brew install uv kubectl

Apps

I want different apps to be present on my mac. Here is the current list of them:

  • Visual Studio Code: Editor for source code, with integrated Git, expandable with extensions
  • Firefox: Privacy Oriented Browser
  • Joplin: Tool to take notes in Markdown
  • KeepassXC: Password Manager
  • Spotifiy: Musik Streaming
  • Zed: Editor for source code (like Visual Studio Code but without Electron)
  • drawio: Tool to create diagrams for different topics
  • Affinity: IMHO the perfect replacement for the Adobe suite (Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator)
  • Virtualbuddy: A simple way to have a VM for Linux or macOS
  • Podman Desktop: A container engine
# Must
brew install visual-studio-code firefox joplin keepassxc spotify zed

# Optional
brew install drawio affinity virtualbuddy podman-desktop