I've had somewhat bad luck with computers lately. In late January my work computer stopped charging, and they replaced it with a used model because they were having supply issues. Its replacement had a broken webcam and, as expected for a butterfly mac, inconsistent keyboard. In April the WiFi stopped working, and while I had just run a cable to my desk we replaced it again. The supply issues have gotten worse, and my current laptop has some minor issues: inconsistent keyboard, splotchy screen, but otherwise good.

With setting up these two Macs, and a third one for music, all within a short time, I think I now have complete list of the changes I need to make before I'm happy using a Mac. Here's the big list, roughly in the order I'd go through them:

[EDIT 2022-06-03: I've updated this from setting up yet another Mac]
[EDIT 2026-09-30: ditto]

• System Preferences:

  • Displays > Arrangement > Mirror Displays (keeps me from bending my neck down at my laptop screen by making it redundant)

  • Trackpad:

    • secondary click > bottom right corner
    • Look up & data detectors > off -- turns off longpress lookups

  • Keyboard:

    • Key Repeat: Fast

    • Delay Until Repeat: Short

    • Keyboard Shortcuts > Modifier Keys > Caps Lock Key: Control

  • Touch ID: add fingerprints, and enable fingerprint unlock

  • Notifications > Show Notifications > "when mirroring or sharing the display" > "Allow Notifications"

• Web Browser:

  • Use Safari to install Chrome

  • Sign into Chrome with my personal account

  • If this is a work laptop, make a second profile for work account

• Backup and Sync:

  • Install Google Drive for desktop and set it to stream. Right click the dotfiles directory and tell it to make it available offline.

  • When that finishes, set up symlinks for each dotfile (ex: ln -s ~/Google\ Drive/dotfiles/_emacs ~/.emacs)

• Install Homebrew, and then brew install iterm2 emacs inkscape gimp icdiff imagemagick mplayer wget lame ffmpeg bash mosh

• Iterm2:

  • Install

  • Profiles > Keys > Left Option key > Left Option: Esc+

  • Profiles > Text > Monaco Regular 10pt non-antialiased

  • Profiles > Terminal > Terminal may enable paste bracketing: no

  • Profiles > Terminal > Enable mouse reporting: yes

  • Profiles > Terminal > Report mouse wheel events: yes

  • Profiles > Terminal > Report mouse clicks and drags: no

  • Profiles > Colors > Use separate colors for light and dark mode: no

  • Profiles > Colors > Color preset: Dark Background

  • Pointer > Focus follows mouse: yes

  • Pointer > Command-click opens filename/url: no

  • General > Selection > Copy to pasteboard on selection: no

  • Make my preferred terminal layout and save the window arrangement

• Mac App Store:

  • Install Clipboard Normalizer and tell it to Launch at Login

• Remove everythig from the dock (I start programs with spotlight)

• Install command line tools: run git, see it fail, click "yes" on the popup that asks if I'd like the OS to fix things so it will start working.

• Tell git who I am: git config --global --edit

• Install Karabiner to control foot switches

• Right click each desktop widget and remove

• Right click desktop > Change Wallpaper > Colors > Black

The symlinking dotfiles saves me quite a lot of configuration, including:

• thorough history logging

• export EDITOR=emacs

• All my emacs configuration...

• Reasonable PS1

• ~/.inputrc: set blink-matching-paren on

• My .ssh directory