Saddling a new mac in 2025

Oct 13, 2025 - ⧖ 2 min

Notes on setting up a new mac laptop in 2025.

The new hotness:

Setup

trackpad click and right click
capslock -> ctrl
keyboard settings: turn off . after double space
set default browser Chrome, default search engine DuckDuckGo
- TODO: install kagi extension, set default to kagi
install wezterm and ghostty (currently using ghostty full-time)
- config requires fish, ~/.wezterm.lua
- ghostty is good out of box
install iTerm2 as a backup terminal
- terminal bell OFF
install homebrew

$ echo >> /Users/bfj/.zprofile
$ echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users/bfj/.zprofile
$ eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Note: I'm only configuring zsh lightly in order to bootstrap fish.

install from brew:

$ brew install \
  awscli  \
  # automatically re-establish ssh connections that go through a proxy  \
  autossh  \
  # better `cat`/`less`  \
  bat  \
  boost  \
  cmake  \
  # watch file changes and execute a command  \
  entr  \
  # better `ls`  \
  eza  \
  fastfetch  \
  # better `find`  \
  fd  \
  # better `zsh` (don't @ me)  \
  fish  \
  # fuzzy text/filesystem search  \
  fzf  \
  # github CLI  \
  gh  \
  git  \
  # post-modern model text editor  \
  helix  \
  htop  \
  jq  \
  mise  \
  mosh  \
  neovim  \
  ninja  \
  node  \
  nvm  \
  pandoc  \
  # better `grep`  \
  rg  \
  texlive  \
  tmux  \
  # python package and project management  \
  uv  \
  xz  \
  # better `cd`  \
  zoxide

fonts
- https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads
rustup: curl to sh install https://rustup.rs/
opam: brew install opam && opam init
setup rclone backup to S3
dotfiles
- dotfiles includes fish config
boot neovim setup: https://github.com/benjaminfjones/kickstart.nvim
download selected backups from old laptop
- tmp/
- Desktop/
Install VSCode as a backup editor

To describe / TODO

clone personal github repos
connect to private tailscale network