If you already have a /usr/local folder and it’s not owned by your user: sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local Install Homebrew: cd /usr/local git init git remote add origin git://github.com/mxcl/homebrew.git git pull origin master This is kind of odd–you install Homebrew right into the base of your /usr/local folder. It nicely ignores other folders that already exists there. Just do it. Install MySQL