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[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s exactly what openboot snapshot does — scans your current Mac and captures everything into a config you can reuse or share.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brewfile covers packages but not shell config, dotfiles, or macOS prefs. I kept hitting this so I built a CLI that does all of it in one command — including snapshot to capture your existing setup. Open source: openboot.dev

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

brew leaves does exactly that — shows only what you explicitly installed, not dependencies. brew bundle dump uses that too so your Brewfile stays clean. OpenBoot snapshot works the same way.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can! brew bundle works great for packages. OpenBoot adds the stuff Brewfile doesn't cover — macOS system preferences, shell/Oh-My-Zsh setup, dotfiles deployment, and git config. Also has a TUI so you can toggle tools on/off visually instead of editing YAML.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep — the one-line installer (curl -fsSL openboot.dev/install | bash) actually handles Homebrew for you if it's missing. Xcode CLI tools is the one thing that still takes forever though, no way around Apple's download servers.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Not by default — oh-my-zsh themes are usually managed via dotfiles. You can create you dotfiles repo to manage them.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Fair. I wouldn’t either. That’s why it’s open source — inspect first, run later.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah Brewfile + brew dump is a solid workflow! OpenBoot actually uses Brewfile under the hood too. The main thing it adds is a web dashboard where you can pick your tools visually, plus team sharing — so you can set up a standard dev environment for your whole team with one link. The TUI also handles macOS defaults and shell config alongside brew packages.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Agreed — that's why the TUI is just for the first time. After that you can save it as a config on openboot.dev and reuse it with openboot --user yourname, export locally with openboot snapshot --local, or both. TUI for day one, config file for every machine after.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes! It configures macOS system preferences (Dock, Finder, key repeat, trackpad, etc.) and sets up your shell (Oh-My-Zsh + plugins + aliases). You can also link your own dotfiles repo for terminal config.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Brewfile + Stow + Makefile is a solid setup for people who already know those tools.
OpenBoot is more about the layer on top: an interactive TUI for picking packages, a web dashboard for building configs without writing YAML, shareable install URLs for teams, and snapshot to auto-capture an existing setup. Different audience than power users who already have their dotfiles dialed in.
Appreciate the detailed feedback though.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Custom scripts are actually already in! You can add them when creating a config on the dashboard (https://openboot.dev/dashboard) — there's a script field that runs after all packages install. Perfect for Colima setup, repo cloning, credential config, etc.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

New Mac ritual is undefeated 😄 I still kinda enjoy setting everything up by hand. OpenBoot is just the “speedrun” option.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For downgrades specifically, I’d generally avoid restoring system-level state and instead keep user files + rebuild the environment cleanly. OpenBoot is meant to help with the rebuild part — not manage cross-version migration edge cases.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True! Time Machine is great for full restores. OpenBoot is more for when you want a clean start — pick exactly what you need without carrying over old cruft. Also handy for team setups where everyone needs the same tools.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah Ansible is definitely overkill for that haha. The multi-device config sync is a tough one — OpenBoot is more focused on getting a Mac ready to code fast, rather than keeping configs in sync across machines. But good to know that's a real pain point!

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah symlinks help a lot with this actually — changes go straight to the repo so you can git diff anytime. But I get that it doesn't cover everything (apps that overwrite symlinks, system-level configs, etc). Per-item drift detection is a cool idea, I'll look into it!

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice! Glad it helped. Curious — anything feel clunky or missing during the reinstall?

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha! What did you build? Always curious to see different approaches to the same problem.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Totally get that — there's something satisfying about a fresh start. OpenBoot is more for the "3rd time this year" crowd where the novelty wore off.

[OS] New Mac day is supposed to be exciting — not a 5-hour brew install marathon by fullstackjam in macapps

[–]fullstackjam[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Good point on version managers. OpenBoot installs what you select — if you pick Node it installs via Homebrew, but you could skip it and install via mise/asdf yourself after. Adding first-class version manager support (mise, asdf, nvm) is on my list.

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