FAQ

How do I update my local packages?

First update the formulas and homebrew itself:

brew update

Afterwards install newer versions of updated packages with:

brew install $(brew outdated)

or upgrade all formulas with:

brew upgrade

You can find out what changed by:

cd `brew --prefix`
git remote add origin https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew.git
git fetch origin
git diff HEAD..origin/master --summary

Having trouble running brew update after a fresh install?

See https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues/5128

Where does stuff get downloaded?

`brew --cache`

Which is usually: ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew

My GUI .apps don’t find /usr/local/bin utilities!

GUI apps on OS X don’t have /usr/local/bin in their PATH by default. You fix this by following these instructions: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa1067/_index.html.

Note that you should put /usr/local/bin after /usr/bin because some programs will expect to get the system version of eg. ruby, and break if they get the newer Homebrew version.

How do I contribute to Homebrew?

See the Formula Cookbook.

bad interpreter: /usr/bin/ruby^M: no such file or directory

You cloned with git, and your git configuration is set to use Windows line endings. Don’t do that.

bad interpreter: /usr/bin/ruby

You don’t have a /usr/bin/ruby or it is not executable. It’s not recommended to let this persist, you’d be surprised how many .apps, tools and scripts expect your OS X provided files and directories to be unmodified since OS X was installed.

Why are you compiling everything?

Projects distribute source tarballs, generally, but if they provide a good binary, we’ll use it. Though we don’t always, because Homebrew is about homebrewing, it’s half the point that you can just brew edit foo and change how the formula is compiled to your own specification.

How do I get a formula from someone else’s branch?

gem install github
cd $(brew --prefix)
github pull someone_else

someone_else is the github username. It assumes a branch named master, if you want a different branch then do github pull someone_else/branch_name.