These are the steps I took to setup a new OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) machine for development. I have heard on twitter that each time you setup a new machine you get 1% better and at this rate you can become good at it in a few hundred years! Ha while that seems to be true I am getting happier with the process and I am now at least trying to document it. This post won’t serve as a rich tutorial on the configuration process, but should give some ideas on good ways to setup your own machine or ideas on how to fix some common gotchas I ran into with my setup.

I know this is a very opinionated approach without much explanation, so if you are new to development I recommend finding richer tutorial as a this is largely intended for my own documentation.

Initial setup steps

verify full disk encryption
update password on account / machine (if one was previously configured)
install all OS X updates
install X code (this and the updates can be slow get this started as soon as you can)
- options download install pretty much all the requested packages
- cmd line xcode-select --install

While Xcode installs

install chrome
while X code installs install size up, or your prefered window manager
install dropbox, get sync started
get ssh keys
- tar czf key.tar.gz .ssh/
- gpg -c key.tar.gz
- scp it over from other machines or encypted file sync via Dropbox
- gpg –output key.tar.gz –decrypt key.tar.gz.gpg
- tar xvzf key.tar.gz
download and install virtualbox

After Xcode, install / run Boxen

Installing Boxen will take a long time, so you can continue any download and configuration steps while it runs although some things you want to install are dependent on Boxen completing.

Boxen setup steps

cd our-boxen-master/
sudo mkdir -p /opt/boxen
sudo chown ${USER}:staff /opt/boxen
git clone https://github.com/boxen/our-boxen /opt/boxen/repo
cd /opt/boxen/repo
script/boxen

install iterm2
install coco-emacs or Aquamacs
install zsh brew install zsh
- change default shell to zsh chsh -s /bin/zsh
- verify your running zsh after opening new terminal ps -o comm $$
install Pygments sudo easy_install Pygments #my dotfiles use Pygments
git clone dotfiles, or however you sync your environment
- sync your non git dot files encypted via scp or pgp dropbox sync (I keep .env_extras that contains some sensative keys so it is not stored on github)
configure VPN (if needed)
install Mou (markdown editor)
install campfire client (Propane)
install IM client, Adium
- configure Adium for gchat
brew install qt
- at the time required HEAD brew update; brew install qt --HEAD
gem install thrift -v '0.9.0' -- --with-cppflags='-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0'

brew install Mysql55

initialize mysql:

mysql_install_db --verbose --user=`whoami` --basedir="/opt/boxen/homebrew/Cellar/mysql55/5.5.30/" --datadir=/opt/boxen/homebrew/var/mysql55 --tmpdir=/tmp

gem install mysql2 -v '0.2.18' -- --with-mysql-dir=/opt/boxen/homebrew/opt/mysql55/
brew install imagemagick

Get your code

begin to git clone all the things you love
start to rbenv install all the Ruby versions you need
bundle install all the things
verify tests are passing or apps start

Updates Since installed

rbenv to get latest ruby 1.9.3-p484 thanks @obfuscurity

cd /opt/boxen/rbenv/plugins/ruby-build

  git pull; cd
  rbenv install 1.9.3-p484
  rbenv global 1.9.3-p484
  gem install bundler

configure default global node.js nodenv global v0.10.21

Possible Improvements

Should I install emacs starter kit or start over? I need to fix my emacs setup
Automated way to reset all the OS X default apps to open file types?
Automate some of the app downloads and installs
Automate some of the common ruby version installs

Continuously Deployed