How To: Install Docker for Mac

Docker for Mac

Turns out, plenty of native macOS apps can be installed using the brew package manager. Among them is Docker, so I decided to try how it installs and works.

Docker for Mac

The easiest is, of course, just to use the native installer provided by Docker maintaners: you download the Docker.dmg file, install it and end up with an app called Docker Desktop:

Install Docker with brew

But since I wanted to try more automated install, I used brew:

greys@maverick:~ $ brew cask install docker
 ==> Satisfying dependencies
 ==> Downloading https://download.docker.com/mac/stable/37199/Docker.dmg
 Already downloaded: /Users/greys/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/01aa470f5479ce702d59bc8d825681bca704ab964279558efd5a2187b126791c--Docker.dmg
 ==> Verifying SHA-256 checksum for Cask 'docker'.
 ==> Installing Cask docker
 ==> Moving App 'Docker.app' to '/Applications/Docker.app'.
 🍺  docker was successfully installed!
 You have mail in /var/mail/greys

That was it! Overall – great improvement of the steps I would normally take to install Docker.

Upon starting this /Applications/Docker.app for the first time, I got the security prompt:

Docker App Security Prompt

But that’s it – after that Docker worked exactly the same and had the very same versions of all the components:

Docker for Mac

Will be trying my most used software installs using brew, it seems a great way to be downloading/installing software in bulk – should be great for new laptop setup (if/when I get it) – I have been upgrading macOS in-place for the past 5 years or so, and think it will be awesome to someday migrate to a brand new clean macOS setup.

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brew Command Not Found

Homebrew for MacOS
Homebrew for MacOS

Quite a few visitors arrived at this blog lately with their reports of “brew command not found“, so I figured a quick post would probably help.

brew is a very popular package manager

Although Homebrew is very popular on MacOS, it’s not a standard tool and not one of the MacOS Commands, so brew does not come preinstalled with your MacOS.

So when you get an error about brew not found, this is quite normal and simply means you’ve never used this software manager before – meaning you need to install it.

How To Install brew in MacOS

The official Homebrew website tells that you simply need to run this command to get started:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Here’s how it will probably look:

Once you press Enter, brew install script will download the latest code for brew and deploy it:

The really cool and clever thing about Homebrew is that going forward brew will be auto-updating itself, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to be running the latest and greated code.

That’t is for now. Chat later!

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