MacBook Air Fresh Install

I got a new MacBook Air M4 with 10‑core CPU and 10‑core GPU / 32GB memory / 1TB storage / sky blue as my main machine, replacing a MacBook Air M1 from late 2020.

I did recently do a [[fresh install of MacOS Sequoia]] so this is going to be similar: I've got a fresh install, I'm figuring out what I need and how I want to run things.

I also keep [[My stuff in the cloud]] so I don't really shuffle files around.

Yes, I know about Brewfiles and dotfiles. I've tried them and I can't really stick with them (and mostly just have one primary laptop as my everything machine).

I usually take internal notes of all the steps I'm taking and then slowly lose track.

When I'm reference "work" below, I mean my current operations role at Ink & Switch, where the stack is Google accounts, Discord (including for all internal team video calls), and [[Patchwork]], which we use internally as a team knowledge base, notes, kanban, embedded whiteboard canvas with tldraw, etc. etc.

First Installs

1Password: this is where all the credentials for everything lives

Chrome: with a personal profile, work profile, and a Z-Space profile that I don't use very much

Discord: used for work, and for many communities I'm part of or run

Obsidian: downloaded it, but didn't set it up

I needed to hop on for a work team call which is partially what decided this order. I ended up with Patchwork in an "Add to Dock" Safari web app mode, which lead to some exploration and I'm running a bunch of [[Commons Computer]] and ATProto apps this way. Working pretty well so far!

Add to Dock Safari web apps in MacOS Tahoe 26 - Boris Mann Tech Blog

Chad had mentioned Liquid AI's Apollo for running local first AI models on desktop and on phone, so I installed and experimented with it, but haven't really gotten anywhere with it.

I messed around with 1PW CLI tools but really the main thing I use is the SSH Agent.

A bundle of other apps:

Signal Desktop

Fastmail: running the PWA from Chrome, although they just released a desktop app that I just switched to (my consulting business email is on Fastmail, I have a long running personal Google account that I'm keeping for now)

Crossover: for my current Dwarf Fortress obsession

Some standard MacOS setup things for me also include [[Keeping screenshots in iCloud]] and [[Downloading into iCloud]].

I still use [[Squoosh]] for image resizing and optimizing, installed as a Chrome PWA.

Docker / Virtual Machine

I did some of this on my last fresh install, but never really got anywhere. I played with Orbstack last time around.

I'm interested in the new Apple Container work, which doesn't really have a GUI on top of it and is pretty raw.

Turns out Podman Desktop has an extension that works with it:

Podman Desktop Apple Container Extension: List Containers & Images on macOS | Podman Desktop

And it was at this point that I failed / won and ended up installing Homebrew.

Of course the bash one-liner that installs it from the Internet!

There was a bunch of yak shaving in here.

brew install --cask podman-desktop
brew install podman
# yeah at this point I was just doing
# whatever it was complaining about
brew tap slp/krunkit
brew install krunkit

Then the extension for Apple container:

GitHub - podman-desktop/extension-apple-container: UI for apple containers in Podman Desktop

I fiddled with this a bit, and got container "running" — container system start, container system status — but didn't really wire it into Podman Desktop correctly / don't really have a specific thing I was aiming to get running.

I had some vague ideas about getting [[Bazzite]] running instead of Cross Over for Linux gaming (knowing that graphics and performance would be hard).

That lead me to WineSkin / Sikarugir, which may or may not be working?

GitHub - Sikarugir-App/Sikarugir: A user-friendly tool used to make wine wrapped ports of Windows software for macOS.

There's a step-by-step video...but it pretty much has a promo for Cross Over right at the beginning.

[[UTM]] is VMs for Mac that uses QEMU. I got Debian 12 booted, but didn't do anything with it.

I also went on a side quest to download Folx as a Bittorrent client for Mac in order to get the Debian image downloaded.

Folx: Free Download Manager for Mac

So, if anyone has recommendations for Podman Desktop and Apple container, send them my way!

I'll need to set myself an actual goal of what to run to actually get somewhere. I get very little tinkering with new software time.

Weekend Checkpoint

Now we're up to present day when I'm fleshing this out and publishing it!

Having Leaflet in a dedicated window and command-tabbing into Chrome to look things up is working pretty great!

I got a Mac keyboard with Touch ID bundled with this new laptop as part of the education promotion. But the RGB glowy HyperX keyboard works well with my home setup. So, [[Karabiner Elements]] to remap left-alt to MacOS left-command.

I've got Obsidian running now, with of course the tension of what do I put in Leaflet vs what do I put in Obsidian. There's some discussion about an Obsidian plugin-in for ATProto, that could publish notes to Leaflet or bookmarks to Semble, which would be really nice.

I have a whole other post to make about the [[MiniPC Z-Space Server]], which got paved over by NixOS and has a PDS and a Tangled Knot & Spindle on it.

View post on Bluesky

Weekend Continued

Logitech G Hub is something that works with both the Blue Yeti mic I have on my home desktop, and G403 mouse.

I installed it to get faster mouse tracking, which even when maxed out in preferences seemed slow. But, the mouse shows as disabled. Apparently there are a bunch of Input Monitoring settings but it's still not working.

I messed around with the microphone a bunch, which I should definitely use for better audio quality for recordings.