OS X Survival Guide
Checklist for a fresh OS X install.
Personal Annoyances
- A proper British keyboard layout.
- FastScripts Lite, along with these scripts, to get one-key switching between Spaces. Set Spaces to switch on ‘^⌥⇧⌘ Number Keys’, then assign e.g. F1 to F4 in FastScripts Lite to run the corresponding script.
- Swap the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn bindings in Terminal.app with their Shift+ variants.
Applications
- Firefox — don’t forget AdBlock Plus, NoScript, Tab Mix Plus and the Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchroniser.
- 1Password — password manager with nice browser integration
- NetNewsWire — RSS aggregator
- VLC media player
- MPlayer OS X Extended — better unofficial build
- Transmission — BitTorrent client
- Handbrake — video encoder
Communication
- Adium — instant messenger
- TweetDeck — Twitter.com client
- Thunderbird — email client from Mozilla, the makers of Firefox
Utilitles
- iStat Menus — system stats
- Unison — file synchroniser
- Grand Perspective — disk usage visualisation
- Secrets Preferences Pane — hidden settings for OS X
Academic
- Skim — PDF viewer
- BibDesk
- Aquamacs Emacs… operating system for Agda or Proof General.
MacPorts
- coreutils +with_default_names
- findutils +with_default_names
- vim +huge
- ghc — use Haskell Platform instead
- darcs — use cabal from above to install
- texlive — use TeXLive instead
- osxutils — OS X specific command-line utilities
- stow — local package management
- … and lots more besides …
Don’t forget the migration information wiki page if you make a major OS upgrade. I’m looking at you, snow kitty.
Omissions? Suggestions?