M4 Mac mini Development Environment Setup Notes (Docker, Local LLM)
I set up a new development environment on a 16GB M4 Mac mini. I used to use an Intel MacBook Pro, and just turning on Docker made the fans spin, which was stressful, but now it's quiet.
The setup order was roughly as follows.
1. Install Homebrew and organize basic CLI tools (git, jq, ripgrep, fzf)
2. Replace Docker with OrbStack. It's lighter than Docker Desktop and builds faster.
3. Use VS Code and Cursor side by side. Simple edits in Cursor, heavy debugging in VS Code.
4. Install Ollama and keep only qwen2.5-coder 7B or so locally. On 16GB, that's about right.
5. Organize the terminal with iTerm2 + zsh + starship.
The downside is the 16GB of RAM. If you run multiple Docker containers and a local model, it starts swapping. If you're serious about using local LLMs, I recommend 24GB or more.
Still, I'm fully satisfied with it for development. It uses little power and is almost silent, so it's great for working at night.
10 answers
Oh, I didn’t know that.
OrbStack is seriously great lol. Switching from Docker Desktop feels like a whole new world. It handles build cache well and uses less memory, so the difference is huge on 16GB.
I feel like running a local LLM on 16GB is asking too much. Even with Qwen 7B, I was hitting swap when using a long context—wouldn't it be better to just use an API?