/preamble

Sets up my mac.

preamble |priːˈamb(ə)l, ˈpriː-| - a preliminary or preparatory statement

My current playbook to setting up a new Mac, it uses Ansible because it's easy to read and write and I hope it helps me avoid this.

I realise automating setting up a new machine probably isn't worth my time, here's a handy graph to see why. However, automating setting up a new machine wasn't the real goal, it was a headfake. By writing this I have an easy way to show others (and future me) what applications I'm using and how I installed them. An added bonus is the glee in feeling like I'm doing HIGH TECH COMPUTERING by installing stuff from a text file.

What will it do

  • Install Homebrew
  • Install several rubies (see ruby.yml)
  • Install command line apps I use
  • Install apps I use (everything I didn't get through App Store is installed using brew cask)
  • Set some sensible OSX defaults

And more, see the playbook.yml for more info.

Steps

  • Install Xcode
  • git clone this repo
  • sudo easy_install pip; sudo pip install ansible
  • cd preamble
  • ansible-playbook playbook.yml

Once this is done, installing new things is as easy as changing the playbook.yml and rerunning ansible-playbook playbook.yml.

I've also tried to add some tags, so you can target specific parts of it (ansible-playbook --tags=tag1,tag2) or skip specific parts (ansbible-playbook --skip-tags=tag1,tag2).

Available tags:

  • capslock: Remaps capslock to control.
  • databases: Install databases
  • defaults: Sets Finder defaults
  • emacs: Installs utils/libs used by GNU Emacs.
  • fonts: Installs the fonts I use.
  • ios: Installs everything related to iOS
  • mail: Installs mail-related tools.
  • nodejs: Installs nodejs tools.
  • osx: Installs OS X applications, and also capslock and defaults.
  • ruby: Install rubies.
  • utils: Installs common command line utils.