/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 https://github.com/pjaspers/preamble.git
  • 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 --ask-sudo-pass.

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:

  • ios (Installs everything related to iOS)
  • mail (Installs mutt and friends)
  • ruby (Install rubies)
  • phantomjs (Install phantomjs)
  • osx (Installs os x applications, and also capslock and defaults)
  • capslock (Remaps capslock to control)
  • defaults (Sets Finder defaults)

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1888?locale=en_US