Software for MacOS

Using Windows or Ubuntu Linux instead? Go to Software for Windows with WSL.

Before you begin, be sure you have installed the software that is the same for everyone (Slack, Zoom, VSCode) from the Software page.

The steps on this page are the same, and in the same order, as the steps on the WSL page, except for the prerequisites in Part 0.

If you have questions about this page, please ask on the #help-macos channel on the Slack.

Throughout, “command prompt” means “Terminal Window” (open the Terminal app in Applications/Utilities).

Part 0: Prerequisites for MacOS

0.1 MacOS version

If you have a MacOS version that is really old (e.g. 12.x), you should consider upgrading to a later version.

I know for sure that 12.x results in this message later on when you try to install things with brew, so folks on version 12.x will need to upgrade. (Folks with later versions might be able to delay upgrading. But if you get a message like this, then you know what you need to do.)

Warning: You are using macOS 12.
We (and Apple) do not provide support for this old version.
It is expected behaviour that some formulae will fail to build in this old version.
...

0.2 Command Line Tools for XCode

On MacOS, git and other basic developer tools typically get installed as part of the “Command Line XCode Tools” the first time you ask to use them. To install them now, type this at the command prompt:

xcode-select --install

If these are not installed, an installer will appear; in that case, follow the instructions given in the message that pops up.

Don’t worry if it says it will take 72 hours for the install; if you start it and let it run for a minute or two, that estimate should come down to something reasonable quickly, but it still may take 10-15 minutes.

Or, you might get this message:

xcode-select: note: Command line tools are already installed. 
Use "Software Update" in System Settings or the softwareupdate command line interface to install updates

If you get that message, type this next:

softwareupdate --list

Look through the list, and see if you find this:

* Label: Command Line Tools for Xcode-16.2
	Title: Command Line Tools for Xcode, Version: 16.2, Size: 751786KiB, Recommended: YES,

If so, use this command to update the command line tools for Xcode. Do not copy this command exactly, but instead, use the label that showed up on your system so that you get the correct version:

sudo softwareupdate --install "Command Line Tools for Xcode-..."

For example, for the output above, I would type:

sudo softwareupdate --install "Command Line Tools for Xcode-16.2"

0.3 Homebrew (package manager)

For MacOS, we’ll be installing several packages for Java and JavaScript (node) development.
In many cases, installing those is easier if you first install the brew package manager.

To see if brew is already installed, type brew update at the command line. If it is already installed, this will update your installation.

If you see the following, then it isn’t installed, so visit https://brew.sh/ and follow the instructions to install it.

zsh: command not found: brew

When the command to install brew finishes, you are not finished so keep that terminal window open and do the next part immediately.

There will be some commands at the end of the output; those will look something like this (but they may not look exactly like this, since they will be tailored to your OS version and machine architecture. Copy from your terminal window, not this web page.)

==> Next steps:
- Run these commands in your terminal to add Homebrew to your PATH:
 echo >> /Users/pconrad/.zprofile
 echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users/pconrad/.zprofile
 eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

It is important to run these commands to complete the brew installation.

Part 1: git

Check whether git is installed by typing:

git --version

If it shows something like this you are good (the version number may vary; any 2.x version is fine):

git version 2.50.1 (Apple Git-155)

If you get a message that you need to install the XCode Command Line Tools, go back to step 0.2.

Set up git

Set your name and email by running the following commands with the appropriate values:

git config --global user.name "Joe Gaucho"
git config --global user.email "joegaucho@ucsb.edu"

Be sure that the listed email is linked to your GitHub account. This is how GitHub is able to attribute a commit to your account, and this will be necessary to receive credit for the code you write. You can check the emails associated with your GitHub account at https://github.com/settings/emails.

Next, generate an SSH key so that you can git clone, git push, etc. without re-entering your GitHub login information each time. (You can always work with repos via HTTPS instead, so this isn’t strictly necessary, but it makes using git much easier.)

  1. At the command prompt, type this (use your own email; accept the default file location, and choose a passphrase or leave it empty):

    ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "joegaucho@ucsb.edu"

  2. Copy the public key to your clipboard:

    pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

  3. On GitHub, go to https://github.com/settings/keys, click “New SSH key”, paste the key in, and save it.

  4. Test it:

    ssh -T git@github.com

    The first time, you will be asked whether to trust the host; type yes. You should see a message like this one:

    Hi your-github-username! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

Part 2: VSCode command line tool

You should already have installed VSCode from the Software page. Now install the command line command so that at the command prompt you can type code . and it will open VSCode in that directory.

  1. Open VSCode.
  2. Access the VS Code Command Palette via shift + Command + P.

  3. Type shell and two commands should pop up:

    image

    Choose Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH and follow the prompts.

  4. Open a new terminal window, cd to any directory, and type code .. VSCode should open with that directory.

Part 3: SDKMAN and Java

Java 25.0.4 is required for this course. SDKMAN is a tool that works on Mac, WSL and Linux that makes it easy to select and install Java versions.

3.1 Install SDKMAN

For installation instructions, see https://sdkman.io/; it’s typically a one line install:

curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash

Then open a new terminal window, or run this command to add the sdk executable to your PATH in the current window:

source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

To check that it worked, type sdk version. It should show these version numbers (or higher):

pconrad@Phillips-MacBook-Air-2 ~ % sdk version

SDKMAN!
script: 5.23.1
native: 0.7.34 (macos aarch64)

pconrad@Phillips-MacBook-Air-2 ~ %

3.2 Use SDKMAN to install Java 25.0.4

Even once you decide to install Java 25.0.4, there are a bewildering array of different distributions to choose from. Based on the website https://whichjdk.com/, the distribution we currently recommend is 25.0.4-tem, so the command to install this with SDKMAN is:

sdk install java 25.0.4-tem

Then, any time you want to use this version of Java in a particular terminal window, you can type:

sdk use java 25.0.4-tem

If you just type sdk use java and press the tab key it may autocomplete for you if you have only one version of Java installed with SDKMAN.

To check that it worked, type:

java --version

You should see something like this:

openjdk 25.0.4 2026-..

If you get zsh: command not found: java, you might have missed this step, so do this and try again:

source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

You really do need Java 25.0.4, specifically, and NOT some other version of Java, even if it is a later version than 25.0.4. It won’t matter for the "Hello World" program in the first week, but when we move on to complex Java applications involving third-party libraries, it can definitely matter.

In this course we work with Spring Boot, as well as many other complex third party libraries. They may have specific dependencies on specific Java versions. In this course we work only with the “Long Term Support” (LTS) versions of Java, avoiding the ones in between, and working with only one at a time (or in some cases, transitioning between LTS versions). That helps us limit the number of different incompatibility issues we have to deal with.

Many real-world software organizations do the same. New graduates are often surprised to see how slowly organizations adopt new versions of languages and frameworks.

Part 4: Maven

Install Maven 3.9.16 using SDKMAN (which you installed in Part 3):

sdk install maven 3.9.16
sdk use maven 3.9.16

If SDKMAN asks whether you want to make it the default version, answer Y.

Installing Maven with SDKMAN (rather than Homebrew) means the same steps work on MacOS and WSL, and that Maven uses whichever Java version you selected with SDKMAN.

Do not leave an older Maven version installed from a previous course or from another package manager. If you previously installed Maven with brew, remove it with brew uninstall maven; otherwise mvn may run Homebrew’s copy, which comes with its own (wrong) version of Java.

To check that the correct version of Java and Maven are installed and selected, use:

mvn --version

You should see output similar to the following. Be sure that:

  • the Maven version is 3.9.16 (or newer)
  • the Maven home is under .sdkman:
  • the selected Java version is 25.0.4
Apache Maven 3.9.16 (...)
Maven home: /Users/yourname/.sdkman/candidates/maven/3.9.16
Java version: 25.0.4, vendor: ..., runtime: /Users/yourname/.sdkman/candidates/java/25.0.4-tem
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "mac os x", ...

If you are not seeing the correct version of Maven or Java after typing the following, then ask for help on the #help-macos channel on the course slack.

 sdk use java 25.0.4-tem
 sdk use maven 3.9.16
 mvn --version

If you get zsh: command not found: mvn, you might have missed this step, so do this and try again:

source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

Part 5: nvm and Node (needed starting in Week 3, for frontend development)

You will not need this right away, so if you want to get started on the early Java-only programming assignments, you can do so now, and come back to this later. You’ll need this for the first assignment that includes “frontend” programming.

Even if you already have node and npm installed on your computer, you should install Node Version Manager (nvm).

The projects you’ll be working on may require specific versions of node and npm, so rather than installing a specific version of Node directly, it is better to use nvm, a program that allows you to easily install and switch between different versions of Node.

As of the start of F26, the recommended LTS version is node v24.21.0 (npm v11.19.0).

5.1 Install nvm

You can install nvm via brew:

brew install nvm

Be sure to read the post installation instructions, which may ask you to type in some commands to adjust your shell, typically something like the ones below. It’s important to do these extra commands, and note that the ones below may not be the correct ones for your system, so copy the ones shown on your screen after you type brew install nvm.

echo 'export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo '[ -s "$(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo '[ -s "$(brew --prefix nvm)/etc/bash_completion.d/nvm" ] && \. "$(brew --prefix nvm)/etc/bash_completion.d/nvm"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

The steps might ask you to put lines in your ~/.zshrc file; you can do this with VSCode (e.g. code ~/.zsrhc) as long as you already installed the VSCode command line at an earlier step.

To verify that the install was successful, open a new terminal window and run:

nvm --version

The current version should be v0.40.8. If you get zsh: command not found: nvm, check that you did the steps recommended in the output of the nvm install script that were printed out on your shell console.

5.2 Install Node

Use nvm to install the current LTS version of Node:

nvm install v24.21.0

Then type this command in every terminal window where you are working with the frontend code (i.e. JavaScript, React):

nvm use v24.21.0

To verify that the install was successful, run:

node -v
npm -v

You should see v24.21.0 for node and v11.19.0 for npm.

Finished?

Check https://ucsb-cs156.github.io/f26/info/install_checklist.html to double check that you completed every step successfully.