I find hilarious the fact that we need to buy & install a windowing tool because the native OS window system has been broken for the past 40 years.<p>Can't they just copy what windows and linux are doing?
Other than installing programs, most of this stuff can be automated by writing a shell script. For example:<p>```<p># Remove the auto-hiding Dock delay<p>defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0<p># Remove the animation when hiding/showing the Dock<p>defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0<p># Automatically hide and show the Dock<p>defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true<p>```<p>More here: <a href="https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos">https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos</a>
It's kind of old but most of them should still work.
Proton Drive, Nextcloud, or iCloud Drive (all E2EE cloud storage solutions) seem like better choices than Dropbox if you're concerned enough about privacy to be using Cryptomator and Mullvad.
I love this opinionated setup, very insightful. For example, I didn't knew anything about Mullvad, or a combination of fonts that looks good. However, I just used emacs, firefox, spotify and inkscape, and that's just it.
I have a similar thing here, mostly just for System Preferences stuff and other Apple app settings: <a href="https://gist.github.com/leoadberg/f889f49b4c33d967d7f5c9101a5503f7" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/leoadberg/f889f49b4c33d967d7f5c9101a...</a><p>Would recommend stealing parts of it! I feel like the default state of macOS can be pretty unusable at times.
I'd use mise [0] over nvm these days.<p>[0] <a href="https://mise.jdx.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://mise.jdx.dev/</a>
One cute trick I've found is that you can install mas[0] (mac app store cli) and then have mas install things from the app store for you[1].<p>also, at least some system prefs can be set via the defaults util[2].<p>[0]: <a href="https://github.com/mas-cli/mas">https://github.com/mas-cli/mas</a><p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L91-L94">https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L22-L39">https://github.com/stephen/dotfiles/blob/master/install.sh#L...</a>
I too had a manual checklist like the author and dragged my feet on a proper solution. Now I have a dotfiles repo with a script that installs homebrew, installs everything in a brewfile, then uses chezmoi to do all my system and shell customization. I’ll eventually get it to the point where I can copy and decrypt secrets, RSA keys, and the likes, as well as support multiple uses (work vs personal) and OSes.<p>The benefit to this is less about new system setup (I don’t buy a new laptop every time the battery goes) and more about synchronizing my settings across machines.
Dock on the right is better as it’s more out of the way of buttons you’ll use (left side menus, window buttons) so you won’t accidentally unhide it. Also I could never get behind magnification, just makes it harder to predict where things are, but I almost never use the dock anyway.
My setup would take weeks to reproduce, I think. So many small tweaks, configuration and extensions that I have accrued over the years. I would dread starting over, which is why I’m very happy with Migration Assistant that helped me migrate to various new machines over 10+ years.
For some things (side dock/toolbar) a rationale would help.<p>Advice on casks in Homebrew and things which unpack an app. Why not brew? Why by hand?<p>Pip is a nightmare but so are all the virtualise methods<p>P12 and SSH identity and key chains.<p>Launchctl sometimes. Xquartz is a decision point.<p>Little snitch asap<p>Avoiding things like Cisco VPN and jamf may mean changing employer.