New Computer Setup

December 28, 2020

I upgraded computers from the 2015 Macbok Pro to the new M1 Pro. This is my first time setting up a new computer since I’ve been coding so I didn’t use the Apple Migration Assistant because I wanted to learn how to do this again from scratch. This has the benefit of me learning to do this again, but also, hopefully I won’t over-add packages I don’t need this time. My last computer definitely had some bloat.

Mac Apps

I audited all the old apps I installed on my old computer and then watched a couple videos to see what others used. I like this one and this one. I also asked the grad school subreddit I’m in and the iOS Programming subreddit for their suggestion to see what I may have not known about but could benefit from.

Terminal

I installed Homebrew, but using Rosetta since Apple’s ARM machines are compatible with Homebrew, yet. I found this website that will alert developers & designers when certain programs are working on Apple Silicon vs Rosetta 2.

The first thins I did was change my shell from zsh to bash. Then I created a .bash_profile and changed it to:

\[`[ $? = 0 ] && X=2 || X=1; tput setaf $X`\]\h\[`tput sgr0`\]:$PWD\n\$

This makes the user green and show’s my present working directly when changing into sub-folders.

VSCode Extensions

I asked Reddit for some suggestions and then added some of my own.

Written by Christian Turner
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