install-mac.md

Mac with Apple Silicon Installation Instructions 💻

If you have trouble installing Elixir on your Mac with an M1 (and M2, M3, etc.) processor. using brew, these are the detailed steps you need!

Homebrew

If you don't already have Homebrew on your Mac, get it at: brew.sh

Install

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Dependencies

brew install autoconf automake coreutils curl fop libtool libxslt libyaml readline unixodbc unzip

In case you're wondering what these are:

• autoconf - configuration tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoconf
• automake - streamlines compilation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automake
• coreutils - basic primitives for unix systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Core_Utilities
• curl - fetching remote data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CURL
• fop - to generate pdf docs: https://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop Install to avoid errors: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64281355/fop-is-missing
• libtool - for compiling on different Operating Systems ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Libtool
• libxslt - XSLT implementation for parsing XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libxslt
• libyaml - YAML parser and emitter library: https://pyyaml.org/wiki/LibYAML
• readline - in-line editing and history capabilities for interactive programs with a command-line interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline
• unixodbc - implements the ODBC API https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnixODBC
• unzip - unzip files: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_(file_format)

OpenSSL

The reason we originally needed these more detailed installation instructions ... Erlang (on Mac) is not compatible with openssl higher than 1.1.

brew install openssl@1.1

brew unlink openssl@2

brew unlink openssl@3

brew link openssl@1.1

asdf

asdf is a version manager that lets you easily run multiple versions of Elixir, Node.js, Python, etc. github.com/asdf-vm/asdf

brew install asdf

Ref: asdf-vm.com/guide/getting-started

Install Erlang using asdf

asdf plugin add erlang https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang.git

Followed by:

asdf install erlang 26.2

Ref: github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang

Install Elixir using asdf

asdf plugin-add elixir https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-elixir.git

Ref: github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-elixir

Then:

asdf install elixir 1.16.0-otp-25

Credits

Credit for this guide goes to @mdapper for their post: devheroes.io/en/erlang-elixir-macos-m1 at the time of writing it was 18 months old and required updating but is still a great starting point.