Homebrew is the best package manager for Mac. Before installing brew make sure XCode is installed. Nowadays, I have switched to Spack for installing scientific software since brew does not have all I need. I only install a few packages from brew, see below.
Here are some useful commands.
brew install gcc -- Install some package, e.g., gcc brew uninstall gcc -- Uninstall a package brew info gcc -- Check package information brew list -- List all installed packages brew update -- Update package list (needs internet connection) brew outdated -- See outdated packages brew upgrade -- Upgrade all outdated packages brew upgrade gcc -- Upgrade a specific package brew cleanup -- Remove old versions of packages brew deps gcc -- Check dependencies for gcc brew uses --installed gcc -- Check which installed packages depend on gcc brew leaves -- List packages not required by any installed package
We will only install some basic packages from Homebrew and the rest of the scientific softwares using Spack.
brew install astyle brew install chapel brew install colordiff brew install dos2unix brew install gcc brew install gv brew install gnuplot --with-x11 brew install wget
Do not install any MPI library since Spack will install it for you.