Daily Archives: May 19, 2017

iMac configuration

I mentioned previously how I’ve rehabilitated the 10-year old iMac. Today, I’ve been setting up the software environment.

First, I transferred my iTunes library over to the new computer.

Then I installed some non-Safari browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and Brave.

Then I set up Homebrew, and after that, ruby:

$ brew install openssl # various messages because Apple doesn’t like openssl
$ brew install sqlite pcre
$ git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
$ git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
$ rbenv install -l
$ rbenv install 2.4.1 # (as of May 19, 2017)
$ hash -r # rehash your environment

Setting Up Homebrew on my New Old Mac

I set up Homebrew on my iMac. (If you go to their site, theÂ Homebrew project has documentation there, which explains the whole not-use-sudoÂ philosophy and using /usr/localÂ now that Apple makes it hard not to, but I don’t understand it, so it seems like an invitation to having your machineÂ rooted. But I’m a greybeard and I quit understanding internet security back when we used uucpÂ because we didn’t have a real internet. Hopefully someone has thought it through.)

Because I’m too lazy and ignorant (and possibly stupid) to RTFM, I found aÂ set of color-by-number instructions handy, although I didn’t use anything after XCodeÂ (a mere 4GB download) and Homebrew.

$ brew doctor
$ brew update
$ brew doctor
$ brew install {lots of good stuff}

At some point I ran into keg-only and Cellar jabber jabber messages, but (see above) I don’t understand any of that. I just take whatever advice brew doctor gives me and move on from there.

Some of the things I always want on a new Mac (or evenÂ one that’s 10 years old) include:

$ brew install imagemagick --with-fontconfig
$ brew install colordiff pwgen tree wdiff pstree
$ brew installÂ pngquant
$ brew install jhead antiword poppler
$ brew install sox lame eye-D3
$ brew installÂ gnupg
$ brew install sqlite

Moving iTunes from one mac to another

The biggest single reason I wanted to fix my old iMac was to put a honkin’ big HD in it, and the reason for that was so I could have an iTunes library on the main hard drive instead of an external (USB 2.0) drive. My iTunes Media folder looks like this:

32 Books
60 Tones
740 Home Videos
6886 Mobile Applications
10791 TV Shows
53041 Movies
84845 Podcasts
95847 Music

Why iTunes doesn’t let us manage our storage intelligently is a mystery (especially given the ridiculously small storage options that Apple providesÂ its Macs, and all their other devices for that matter). But now I’ve got plenty of room to store 250 GB of media in the iTunes folder as well as the different places I keep it for real. So there.

The only problem was getting it into the iTunes folder, in a way that iTunes understands. But this is a known problem, and Apple has a documented procedure.

Then I had to Authorize my computer (the “new” iMac) and Deauthorize the old one (the Mac Mini). I don’t know how Apple keeps track of what computers have been authorized, but they decided this one was already Authorized, from back when it was our main computer. I don’t know if I forgot to Deauthorize it or what, but now I’ve only got 2 of 5 Authorized computers.