Perfect Steps of Installing Erlang and Elixir to Apple Silicon Mac (2021 Dec edition)

In this article, I'll show the perfect steps of installing Erlang and Elixir to Apple Silicon Mac from scratch using Homebrew and asdf.

1. Upgrade macOS (if M1)

You can skip this step for M1 Pro/Max.

If M1, pre-installed macOS is Big Sur. So, first of all, you need to upgrade macOS into Monterey 12.1. However, upgrading from the pre-installed macOS Big Sur to Monterey will be failed due to the defect of the installer of Monterey. So, you should update Big Sur as the first step. Next, upgrade it into Monterey 12.0.1. Next, update it into Monterey 12.1.

2. Install Xcode 13.2.1 (optional)

You can skip this step even though you will install Homebrew.

Install Xcode 13.2.1 by App store.

3. Install Homebrew

1. Launch terminal.
2. Install Homebrew according to the official website.
3. Run commands shown in the output results after installation.

The commands mentioned above are as follows (it requires your login password by sudo):

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Be sure to check and use the installation procedure on the official website and the commands displayed after installation.

4. Install Erlang and Elixir by Homebrew

Run the following commands at the terminal:

brew update
brew install elixir

These commands install the latest Erlang and Elixir. If you use only the latest ones, these commands will be the easiest.

4'. Install only Erlang by Homebrew

If you want to install only Erlang, run the following commands at the terminal:

brew update
brew install erlang

4''. Install Erlang and Elixir by asdf

Unfortunately, the installation procedure on the official website gets incomplete: unlinked to wx and odbc, lack of documents, etc.

4''-1. Install asdf by Homebrew

Install asdf by Homebrew according to the official website. I'll show the commands as follows, but you should check the official website:

brew install asdf
echo -e "\n. $(brew --prefix asdf)/libexec/asdf.sh" >> ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zshrc
source ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zshrc

4''-2. Install Erlang by asdf

This step is the most important. Firstly, install pre-requisite libraries:

asdf plugin add erlang https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang.git
brew install wxwidgets
brew install openjdk
echo 'export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk/bin:$PATH"' >> ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zshrc
source ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zshrc
brew install fop

Then, set the environment variables KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTION, CC and LDFLAGS as follows:

export KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS="--with-ssl=$(brew --prefix openssl@1.1) --with-odbc=$(brew --prefix unixodbc)"
export CC="/usr/bin/clang -I$(brew --prefix unixodbc)/include" 
export LDFLAGS=-L$(brew --prefix unixodbc)/lib

If you will install Erlang/OTP 24.2+ and use OpenSSL 3, install OpenSSL 3 and reset KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTION:

brew install openssl@3
export KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS="--with-ssl=$(brew --prefix openssl@3) --with-odbc=$(brew --prefix unixodbc)"

I got the solution to link odbc by referring this issue: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang/issues/191

Next, if you'll install the latest one, run the following commands:

asdf install erlang latest
asdf global erlang latest

You can get the versions that can be installed as follows:

asdf list-all erlang

Unfortunately, some specific older versions cannot be installed into Apple Silicon Mac.

If you'll install OTP 22, follow this issue: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang/issues/221

After installation, unset CC and LDFLAGS:

unset CC LDFLAGS

4''-3. Install Elixir by asdf

Install the Elixir plugin by asdf according to the official website.

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

Next, if you'll install the latest one, run the following commands:

asdf install elixir latest
asdf global elixir latest

You can get the versions that can be installed as follows:

asdf list-all elixir

Summary

You'll get Elixir and Erlang on Apple Silicon as the steps mentioned above.

Comments

[DDDHuang]

Great solution to the M1 problem. Awesome

[Gage]

This is what I had to do:

export KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS="--disable-hipe --with-ssl=$(brew --prefix openssl)"
export CFLAGS="-O2 -g -fno-stack-check"

Then SSL worked properly, from here: github.com/kerl/kerl/issues/320#is...

[Dongseok Paeng]

I had to add --without-wx as well in KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS but finally it worked. Thanks!!

[Angelika Cathor]

Thank you for this guide! M3 mac in 2023 here: I had to add --disable-jit to KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS to succeed installing Erlang 25 (one version older than current newest version)

[Pere Picó]

More than a year and a half later, I keep coming back here to get my ass saved every time I need to upgrade my Elixir and Erlang versions 😄 Thanks a lot for this.