Mac setup and dotfiles

Tools and instructions to speed up and automate my setup and configurations after clean re-installation of MacOS.

Requirements

MacOS, the following setup has a clean installation in mind.

Make your own

If you want to make your own setup based on this one I recommend the following steps:

Fork the repository
Edit the Brewfile
- Some apps however are required for later steps (e.g. nerd-font, iTerm2, mas, nvm, neofetch, jq, rbenv, p10k, zsh-*)
Edit settings.sh to suit your own preferences
- The github repo https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles contains a lot of like minded tweaks.
Edit mixin/aliases
- PS. before you start adding your own aliases I recommend running alias and looking at what is already there, a lot of stuff comes with the Oh-My-Zsh plugins.
Follow the manual setup guide

Manual Setup

The setup process is manual but I find it helpful to split it up into stages.

Base stage

This stage sets up the bare necessities for the rest of the stages:

Install the XCode Command Line tools
Configure git account info for github.com
Clone the dotfiles repository
Install Homebrew

Install the Xcode Command Line Tools

xcode-select --install

Configure git account info for github

If you are not Friðjón, change this to your info

git config --global user.name "Friðjón Guðjohnsen"
# Redacted to protect the innocent
git config --global user.email "*******@gmail.com"
git config --global github.user fridjon
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore

Clone the dotfiles repository

git clone https://github.com/fridjon/dotfiles
# Hide the dotfiles folder so it does not show up in finder
chflags hidden dotfiles

Install Homebrew

# Will prompt for password and requires [enter]. Also need to run two manual commands that are output
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Allow apps downloaded from anywhere before installing with Brew

sudo spctl --master-disable

shell stage

This stage sets up the shell environment in a nice and pleasing way. Firs

Install applications from base-brewfile

cd ~/dotfiles
brew bundle --file brews/Brewfile-base -v
# dotnet-sdk requires password, expressvpn requires password, msodbcsql requires YES, mssql-tools requires YES (twice)
brew bundle --file brews/Brewfile-frameworks -v
brew bundle --file brews/Brewfile-apps -v
brew bundle --file brews/Brewfile-docker -v

MacOS system preferences

Run settings.sh to apply custom preferences for Finder, Menu bar, Dock etc.

These settings are what is most likely to break as the preferences and corresponding files change between Mac OS versions. To be safe, skip running this script (except the last osascript step in the file that updates the look of terminal.app) and change settings manually.

Also note that the github repo https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles contains a lot of like minded tweaks.

cd ~/dotfiles
chmod +x settings.sh
./settings.sh

Make the shell awesome with iTerm2, Zsh, Oh-My-Zsh, Powerlevel10k & neofetch

Set preferences for iTerm2

defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2.plist PrefsCustomFolder -string "~/dotfiles/iterm2"
defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2.plist LoadPrefsFromCustomFolder -bool true

Install Oh-My-Zsh

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

Zsh Profile +

Source the ZSH profile and other config files (optionally restart Terminal/iTerm2 after creating the symlink)

# Symlink neofetch config and .vimrc
touch ~/.hushlogin
mkdir -p ~/.config/neofetch
ln -svf ~/dotfiles/neofetch/config.conf ~/.config/neofetch/
ln -svf ~/dotfiles/.vimrc ~/
# Symlink .zshrc
ln -svf ~/dotfiles/.zshrc ~/
source ~/.zshrc

If you get compaudit insecure directories error run:

compaudit | xargs chmod g-w
compaudit | xargs chmod o-w

###########################

If you are on Apple silicon you might want to install Rosetta 2 in order to run x86 code by emulation. This is also needed for certain dockers only available as x86, most notoriously SQL Server.

softwareupdate --install-rosetta

TODO: Add stuff to configure docker to use Rosetta2

SSH keys

With 1password installed I get my SSH-keys from saved documents and move to ~/.ssh and make sure permissions are correct

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
chmod 700 ~/.ssh

If you have not created a ssh key, or wish to create a new one you can do that with the following.

cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "*****@gmail.com"

Create ~/.ssh/config and modify it to automatically load keys into ssh-agent and store passphrases in keychain.

touch ~/.ssh/config
# Add to following to the config file
Host *
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Add the private key to the ssh-agent and store the potential passphrase in the keychain.

ssh-add --apple-use-keychain ~/.ssh/github-220305

If the public SSH-key has been added to GitHub, the connection can be tested

ssh -T git@github.com

GPG keys, Github

Setup ~/.gnupg folder from backup, checkout this gist for how to GPG.

gpg -k --keyid-format LONG # Copy the key for next step
git config --global user.signingkey <KEY>
git config --global commit.gpgsign true
git config --global gpg.program $(which gpg)
echo "pinentry-program /usr/local/bin/pinentry-mac" > ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
echo "use-agent" > ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf

MacOS system preferences

Run settings.sh to apply custom preferences for Finder, Menu bar, Dock etc.

These settings are what is most likely to break as the preferences and corresponding files change between Mac OS versions. To be safe, skip running this script (except the last osascript step in the file that updates the look of terminal.app) and change settings manually.

cd ~/dotfiles
chmod +x settings.sh
./settings.sh

Make the shell awesome with iTerm2, Zsh, Oh-My-Zsh, Powerlevel10k & neofetch

Set preferences for iTerm2

defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2.plist PrefsCustomFolder -string "~/dotfiles/iterm2"
defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2.plist LoadPrefsFromCustomFolder -bool true

Install Oh-My-Zsh

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

Zsh Profile +

Source the ZSH profile and other config files (optionally restart Terminal/iTerm2 after creating the symlink)

# Symlink neofetch config and .vimrc
touch ~/.hushlogin
mkdir -p ~/.config/neofetch
ln -svf ~/dotfiles/neofetch/config.conf ~/.config/neofetch/
ln -svf ~/dotfiles/.vimrc ~/
# Symlink .zshrc
ln -svf ~/dotfiles/.zshrc ~/
source ~/.zshrc

If you get compaudit insecure directories error run:

compaudit | xargs chmod g-w
compaudit | xargs chmod o-w

Ruby and Gems

Install latest Ruby version and colorls for colorful ls with icons. Aliased to lc and lcc

rbenv install $(rbenv install -l | grep -v - | tail -1)
rbenv global $(rbenv install -l | grep -v - | tail -1)

Restart your terminal before installing gems

gem install colorls

Python

With pyenv installed, get the latest version of python

PYTHON_LATEST=$(pyenv install --list | sed 's/^  //' | grep '^\d' | grep --invert-match 'dev\|a\|b' | tail -1)
PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--enable-framework"
pyenv install $PYTHON_LATEST
pyenv global $PYTHON_LATEST
pip install --upgrade pip

Node

Setup Node with nvm

mkdir ~/.nvm
# nvm needs python 2.7
pyenv install 2.7
pyenv shell 2.7
nvm install 16
nvm install 18
nvm alias default 18
nvm use default

Install global packages from npmfile

cat ~/dotfiles/npmfile | xargs -L1 npm i -g > /dev/null

Visual Studio Code settings

I sync plugins and settings to Visual Studio Code with the Settings sync plugin. It requires a GitHub API Token with gist access. Check out the configuration instructions. I store my GitHub API Token in a secure note with 1password.

My currently configured plugins can be found with:

curl -s https://api.github.com/gists/8b47741d950a86e46222eb8bfc293a9a \
| jq '.files."extensions.json".raw_url' \
| tr -d \" \
| xargs curl -s \
| grep name

Private Config files

I keep some config files, shell aliases and application preferences in a private branch of this repository and copy them into their designated destination after installing the apps. These files might contain Software Licenses, network addresses and other private data.

Other Software

Here's a list of other software that doesn't have a homebrew package

Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Photoshop
Canon EOS Utility

Stay up to date

Run these commands regularly to stay up to date

# Brew upgrade, update and cleanup
bubu
# npm update
npmu

Credits

Thanks to the dotfiles community and the creators/contributors there. Many of the aliases, settings etc. are borrowed from the repositories found there.