🍎What about a Mac mini?

This guide is written for Linux, because it’s the most affordable path, the closest to a real server, and the most faithful to how things actually get deployed. But in real life, plenty of you already have a Mac mini sitting on a desk. Good news: it’s an excellent machine for this purpose, and a large part of what’s written here runs on it without the slightest problem.

What works exactly the same

Most of the journey doesn’t depend on the operating system. On a Mac mini, all of this applies with no adaptation whatsoever:

• Coding agents: Claude Code and OpenCode run natively on macOS. Installing them works the same way.
• Local AI: Ollama has a macOS app, and the models run very well on Apple Silicon. The hybrid cloud + local setup is identical.
• AI agents: the entire chapter (the concept, the setup, agents running in the background, Hermes & OpenClaw) works the same.
• Networking: Tailscale has a macOS app, and Cloudflare Tunnel offers cloudflared for Mac. You expose and reach your machine in exactly the same way.
• Git, GitHub and Docker: identical (Docker Desktop on the Mac side).
• And above all, the whole Working well chapter: scoping a project, memory files, skills, review and audit, maintenance. These are methods, not system commands. They don’t change one bit.

In short: it’s mostly the system layer (the installation and a few admin commands) that differs. Everything else, the heart of the matter, is the same.

What you need to adapt

Four differences to know about, all of them simple:

On Linux (Ubuntu)	On a Mac mini (macOS)
Install Linux from a USB stick	Nothing to do: macOS is already there. Skip the Install Linux page.
apt install ...	Homebrew: brew install ... (install Homebrew first, it’s the go-to package manager on Mac).
Services with systemd	launchd (or simpler, brew services start ...) to keep a service running continuously.
ufw firewall	The macOS firewall (in System Settings → Network). The principle of least privilege itself doesn’t change (see Securing access).

So, Linux or Mac mini?

Both are excellent choices, and honestly it comes down to what you have on hand. A Linux mini-PC is cheaper, more “server”-like, and hugs the deployment environment as closely as possible. A Mac mini, you may already own one, its unified memory is an asset for local AI, and macOS is probably more familiar to you. Either way, the real subject of this guide stays the same: building a workshop where you describe a project and the machine builds it with you.