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I just discovered Homebrew Package Manager and I like the idea of it.

Is it possible to manage and upgrade casual software like Ableton, Word, Excel, InkScape, CodePaint, etc. or is Homebrew 100% ruby?

I am looking for a easy way to keep my Macs clean and I need to be able to setup new Macs fast. So creating a recipe for all software then brewing it sounded like a good plan.

Best, Tobias

uraimo
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Tobias Schmidt
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2 Answers2

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Just for completeness:

The extension Homebrew-Cask allows Homebrew to work with casual software too: https://github.com/caskroom/homebrew-cask

Tobias Schmidt
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Homebrew only provide a way to install open source software, so if someone built a formula (a description of how to get sources and compile that program) to describe that software package you can install it with homebrew, otherwise you can build a formula yourself(it's not that hard) or wait for someone else to do it.

So, regarding the availability in homebrew:

Not available: Ableton,Word,Excel,PaintCode

Available: Inkscape

uraimo
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  • Hello user! Thanks for clarifying. So if I paste my credentials into the formula and work out where the files need to be copied would I be able to access commercial products like Ableton? Ofc this makes it impossible to share the formula. – Tobias Schmidt May 03 '15 at 08:48
  • No, homebrew supports only opensource and free software, those product you listed above are commercial and so you can't have access to the application source, that is needed by homebrew to compile it and install it (this is what homebrew does and can only do this, it downloads the source code of a project, compiles it for your release of osx and install it). The formula just says where the source code is and how to compile it. – uraimo May 03 '15 at 10:19
  • To be more clear, homebrew it's not something that download an already compiled commercial application from some server and install it for you. It's not an terminal "application manager" :) – uraimo May 03 '15 at 10:21