Pop open a cask: Homebrew version 4.0.0 is here Homebrew is a handy tool if you work in a terminal window on a Mac, which lets you quickly and easily install a wide variety of familiar tools from the wider FOSS world. The add-on package manager doesn't need superuser permissions and installs programs into your home directory: it "does for macOS what apt-get does for Debian …
Homebrew was originally built for macOS, but the concept proved useful for Linux users, too. Either you may not have root access to the machine – or even if you do, that may only let you install ancient versions which aren't much help, but you can't readily update.
Installing Homebrew outside of /usr/local is not officially supported and Apple removed permissions to access /usr/local for non-root users years ago. Then a few years later they removed root. In short, on a Mac, no user installation for you - you need the admin password at least once.
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> Installing Homebrew outside of /usr/local is not officially supported and Apple removed permissions
Er, I am not disputing that... I think you are misunderstanding the sentence.
The first part of the sentence refers to macOS, but then it changes the subject to Linux. The following sentence continues that point: it is talking about why a Linux user might want Homebrew, and it continues with two examples: no root, or old versions.
It is not talking about macOS any more. The second sentence you quote is *only* about Linux.
As such, your point:
> In short, on a Mac, no user installation for you
... is responding to something I did not say. After the first six words, *all the rest is about Linux* and it is nothing to do with Apple.
Okay, if the concept which proved useful for both MacOS and Linux users is not no-root installations after all, you'd still need to set up a /home/linuxbrew directory on Linux which in most distributions would require a password to create the new linuxbrew user. It's not e.g. ~/.linuxbrew which would not require a password.
Linux folks expect to just be able to apt install python-3.11 or the like
And why would I ever want to do that only to find out shortly afterwards that I probably wanted python-3.11-devel? Apt gets so much wrong it's embarassing, and definitely not something to be emulated! Then there's all the problems associated with wher the stuff gets installed and whether you want to override the system build.
And the solution: install MacPorts, fire up a terminal (iTerm 2, of course) and use port install …. I have Python 3.6 to 3.12-dev (the Python itself version is in development). Installs are usually from precompiled binaries but source compiles are always possible and I don't have to go along with Homebrew's decision to trust Apple to get system libraries right and keep them up do data (little chance of that). /opt/local has always been used to ensure isolation from system stuff. In summary, everything that ports got right in the first place. With binaries.
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