M3 MacBook setup for development env

The M3 chip uses ARM architecture, so I prioritize software and tools that have native ARM support for optimal performance. Here are the must-have steps I inherited from my Intel configuration.

Install Homebrew (a free and open-source package manager): It simplifies the installation of software on macOS and Linux, and has good ARM support now.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Once you have Homebrew installed, you could start installing the basics dev tools such as:

brew install \\
  git \\ - Version control
  nvm \\ - Node version manager
  pnpm \\ - Node package manager
  gh \\ - Github CLI
  wget \\ - cURL alternative

Updated: In the early versions of the Apple Silicon Macs, we needed to install Rosseta 2 to install Homebrew. Luckily, Homebrew now has native support for Apple Silicon Macs, including those with M1, M2, and M3 chips. The installation process is the same as on Intel-based Macs, and it will automatically install the ARM64 version of Homebrew designed for Apple Silicon.

iTerm2: It's one of the ARM-native options

Download it here, then unzip and move it to Application, or

$ brew install --cask iterm2

Customize ZSH shell

Since Catalina, the default shell in macOS has been zsh instead of the old default, bash. To customize zsh, I use the famous Oh My ZSH!

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Open the file .zshrc and customize as you like. Tip: ohmyzsh Cheatsheet

There are a couple of formulas worth to install from the go:

brew install zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting

Add active these formulas add the following in your .zshrc file. source $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/share/zsh-autocomplete/zsh-autocomplete.plugin.zsh source $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh