MacBook with MacPorts
Introduction
This document covers how to set up an Intel-chip (x64) Macbook as a developer machine, using MacPorts as the package manager.
This is intended for old Macbooks whose OS has dropped out of Homebrew Tier 1 support. For example, when macOS Tahoe was released, Ventura dropped to Homebrew Tier 3 support. A 2017 Macbook Pro cannot upgrade beyond Ventura, so it has to use MacPorts. Since Tahoe is the last macOS that supports x64, eventually all Intel-chip Macbooks have to use MacPorts instead of Homebrew.
All commands on this page should be executed from the user’s home directory.
See MacBook with Homebrew for setting up an ARM64 MacBook using Homebrew as the package manager.
Install xcode command line tools
xcode-select --install
Install macports
Use the GUI installer downloaded from the MacPorts website. Choose to use the “default prefix” during installation.
Use the macOS default Terminal app. Add the following line to both ~/.zshrc and ~/.bash_profile. Restart terminal.
export PATH="/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH"
Perform initial selfupdate.
sudo port selfupdate
Use the latest version of bash
sudo port install bash bash-completion
Put bash inside /usr/local/bin and add it to /etc/shells.
pushd /usr/local/bin
sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/bin/bash
popd
echo '/usr/local/bin/bash' | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
Change the default shell for human admin user to /usr/local/bin/bash.
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash
Change the default shell for root to /bin/bash.
sudo chsh -s /bin/bash
Restart computer for the default shell change to take effect.
Install ghostty
Go to the download page. Download the package installer and use it.
From now on perform all CLI operations in Ghostty.
Install essential utilities
sudo port install curl jq yq rlwrap fzf bat tree
Install coding tools
When coding, run NeoVim inside Tmux sessions.
sudo port install git neovim ripgrep lua-luarocks tmux pre-commit
Install go
sudo port install go
Install uv
sudo port install uv
Install fnm
fnm is a Node versions manager that doesn’t cause a noticeable slow down at activation.
The CLI interface is largely similar to that of nvm.
sudo port install fnm
Install aws cli v2
curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg"
sudo installer -pkg AWSCLIV2.pkg -target /
rm AWSCLIV2.pkg
Install github cli
For authentication against GitHub, the most convenient option is to use the GitHub CLI. To install, run the following commands.
sudo port install gh
Login immediately.
gh auth login
Install shellcheck
sudo port install shellcheck
Get dot files
mkdir -p ~/.config
git clone https://github.com/kxue43/dotfiles ~/.config/dotfiles
~/.config/dotfiles/set-up.sh
Restart the terminal so that Bash start-up files take effect.
Set the .gitconfig.local file
If the global Git user name and email must be different from the personal ones, set them via the following commands.
git config --file ~/.gitconfig.local user.name USERNAME
git config --file ~/.gitconfig.local user.email EMAIL
To configure commit signing differently from the default, add the following contents to .gitconfig.local.
Use the options to turn commit signing on/off or to use a different GPG key.
[commit]
gpgsign = true
[tag]
gpgSign = true
[user]
signingkey = ${GPG_KEY_ID}
If all Git configurations are the same with the personal defaults, symlink .gitconfig.local to .gitconfig.personal.
ln -s $HOME/.config/dotfiles/.gitconfig.personal $HOME/.gitconfig.local
Set up GPG to sign git commits
Install gnupg and pinentry-mac. The former is the GPG software while the latter is a GUI for prompting for passphrases.
brew install gnupg pinentry-mac
echo "pinentry-program $(which pinentry-mac)" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
Restart gpg-agent.
gpg-connect-agent reloadagent /bye
Enter GPG interactive mode by gpg --card-edit, and then enter the fetch and quit command in order.
The outputs would be something like below.
gpg/card> fetch
gpg: requesting key from 'https://github.com/kxue43.gpg'
gpg: key C9EED408F4B6D021: "Sato Seinosuke (kxue43.github.io) <kxue43@gmail.com>" not changed
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: unchanged: 1
gpg/card> quit
Then use gpg --list-secret-keys to confirm that the keys have been fetched.
The outputs should be something like below.
[keyboxd]
---------
sec> rsa4096 2025-12-24 [SC]
5EF2BE73370DCE7E808814DBC9EED408F4B6D021
Card serial no. = 0006 27538718
uid [ unknown] Sato Seinosuke (kxue43.github.io) <kxue43@gmail.com>
ssb> rsa4096 2025-12-24 [E]
Install go executables
go install github.com/kxue43/cli-toolkit/cmd/toolkit@latest
go install github.com/kxue43/cli-toolkit/cmd/toolkit-assume-role@latest
go install github.com/kxue43/cli-toolkit/cmd/toolkit-serve-static@latest
go install github.com/kxue43/cli-toolkit/cmd/toolkit-show-md@latest
go install mvdan.cc/sh/v3/cmd/shfmt@latest
go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/godoc@latest
go install golang.org/x/pkgsite
go install github.com/air-verse/air@latest
Install rust executables
cargo install --locked tree-sitter-cli
Set up neovim
git clone https://github.com/kxue43/nvim-files ~/.config/nvim && nvim
After plugin installation finishes, run :MasonInstallAll to install all LSPs
and :TSInstallAll to install all tree-sitter parsers.
Run :checkhealth to see if there are any problems.
Install java, maven and gradle
First install Amazon Corretto 21 or another LTS version. This GUI installation is to avoid using Oracle OpenJDK at all.
Open the file ~/.${env}.bashrc (${env} depends on environment) and update the default Java version to use.
#export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v SET_HERE)
Source ~/.bashrc to refresh settings.
source ~/.bashrc
Manually install Maven and Gradle. Set their desired version numbers first.
Packages are installed in ~/.local/lib. Symlinks to the binaries are created in ~/.local/bin.
export MVN_VERSION=3.9.10
export GRADLE_VERSION=8.14.2
curl -o ~/Downloads/apache-maven-${MVN_VERSION}-bin.zip -L https://dlcdn.apache.org/maven/maven-3/${MVN_VERSION}/binaries/apache-maven-${MVN_VERSION}-bin.zip
unzip -d ~/.local/lib ~/Downloads/apache-maven-${MVN_VERSION}-bin.zip
pushd ~/.local/bin && \
ls ~/.local/lib/apache-maven-${MVN_VERSION}/bin | xargs -I % sh -c "ln -s $HOME/.local/lib/apache-maven-${MVN_VERSION}/bin/%" && \
popd
curl -o ~/Downloads/gradle-${GRADLE_VERSION}-bin.zip -L https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-${GRADLE_VERSION}-bin.zip
unzip -d ~/.local/lib ~/Downloads/gradle-${GRADLE_VERSION}-bin.zip
pushd ~/.local/bin && \
ln -s $HOME/.local/lib/gradle-${GRADLE_VERSION}/bin/gradle && \
popd
rm ~/Downloads/apache-maven-${MVN_VERSION}-bin.zip
rm ~/Downloads/gradle-${GRADLE_VERSION}-bin.zip
Optional
Install pyenv
pyenv is a CLI tool written in shell scripts. It installs multiple versions of Python by downloading and
compiling them from C source code. First we install various tools that are needed to compile Python interpreters.
sudo port install pkgconfig openssl xz gdbm tcl tk +quartz sqlite3 sqlite3-tcl zstd
Now install pyenv via git clone into the ~/.pyenv folder.
git clone https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv.git ~/.pyenv
pushd ~/.pyenv && src/configure && make -C src && popd
Install pipx and poetry
sudo port install pipx
pipx ensurepath
pipx install poetry
pipx inject poetry poetry-plugin-export
Install groovy
Download a Groovy SDK bundle into the ~/Downloads folder, e.g. use this link.
Set the GROOVY_VERSION environment variable below to the corresponding version.
export GROOVY_VERSION=4.0.27
unzip -d ~/.local/lib ~/Downloads/apache-groovy-sdk-${GROOVY_VERSION}.zip
pushd ~/.local/bin && \
ls ~/.local/lib/groovy-${GROOVY_VERSION}/bin | grep -v '\.bat$' | grep -v '\.ico$' | xargs -I % sh -c "ln -s $HOME/.local/lib/groovy-${GROOVY_VERSION}/bin/%" && \
popd
rm ~/Downloads/apache-groovy-sdk-${GROOVY_VERSION}.zip
Open ~/.${env}.bashrc, update the installed Groovy version.
#export GROOVY_HOME=$HOME/.local/lib/groovy-SET_HERE