For those times when you need to install many software packages at once, like when setting up a new PC or virtual machine, you can create a Brewfile with a list of packages and run it with the ‘brew bundle’ command. However, the Brewfile isn’t limited to just Homebrew packages. You can also use it to install Mac App Store apps, graphical apps through Casks, Visual Studio Code extensions, and Go language packages.
Starting with this week’s Homebrew v5.0.4 release, Flatpaks are now supported in Brewfiles as well.
This turns Homebrew into a fantastic setup tool for macOS, Linux, and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) environments. You can have one script with all your preferred software, and use ‘if’ statements with platform variables and existing file checks for added portability.
You could already use simple bash scripts with ‘apt’ commands to achieve similar results, but Bash is not a consistent environment across macOS and every Linux distribution.
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