MacOS – Homebrew – Upgrading software in /usr/bin

githomebrewmacos

My OS X comes with a version of Git installed in /usr/bin. However, this version is older than the official stable one. I would like to upgrade it.

Can I use Homebrew to upgrade this version? Or would Homebrew install Git in a separate location (and if I do so, how can I ensure that the new version is actually used)?

Best Answer

Don't replace, modify or rename the system tools in /usr/bin. There are a number of reasons why this is a bad thing, and you can search for the specific reasons, but to be simple, don't edit the system versions.

Homebrew knows this, and that's why it stores the tools in /usr/local/bin. This version is used instead of the system version since Homebrew requests that its directory be before the system path in the $PATH variable.

Run brew doctor and you'll probably get a message like this:

Warning: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those provided by Homebrew. The following tools exist at both paths:
easy_install
easy_install-2.6
Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin is ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH.

To fix this, either add this to your profile:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

…or add /usr/local/bin to the top of /etc/paths, such as:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

Related Solutions

MacOS – Where did /usr/bin/git come from

git is installed by Xcode. I doubt you'll have any problems if you replace it, but I can't give you a definitive answer to that…

What I'd do is rename the old /usr/bin/git to git_old, then rely on your path to select the new one.
If that doesn't work, move the new one to /usr/bin. I doubt Xcode is picky about which version of git it's using.
If that still doesn't work, move git_old back to /usr/bin/git and use either a direct path, rename, or alias for your new one.

I doubt you'll have to go past #1 above, though. That should be enough.

Edit: I read your original post backwards. The first thing you should do is make sure your path includes the new git directory BEFORE the directory that contains the old git.

How to work around a “Could not resolve host: (nil)…” error when installing/using Homebrew

Seems that you have problems connecting to github via https.

While I'm not sure what could cause it and how to fix it, you still can use git with another protocol.

Here's the commands to install homebrew in /usr/local/ from scratch using git:// instead of https://:

cd /usr/local/
git init -q
git remote add origin git://github.com/mxcl/homebrew
git fetch origin master:refs/remotes/origin/master -n
git reset --hard origin/master

That should work. Please notice that if you choose to use another directory for homebrew, you probably will have to append its ./bin directory to your environment PATH variable for comfortable usage.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – Where did /usr/bin/git come from

How to work around a “Could not resolve host: (nil)…” error when installing/using Homebrew

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