How Long Does it Take You to Tweak a New Box? 463
An anonymous reader asks: "When you get a new computer, how long does it take to make it 'home'? On a Windows system, there seem to be a huge number of preferences I have to choose before it is really comfortable (doing things like: installing software; changing the wallpaper and color schemes; start menu layout; and so forth). How long do you have to fiddle with computer until you have it set up the way you like? Do you use any shortcuts to speed up the process?"
Weeks. (Score:4, Informative)
It's never over with (Score:5, Informative)
The only real shortcut.... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, how the heck did this one make it through the filters? Who the heck cares how long it takes people to set up their system? Although I will brag that I can assemble a new box in under 10 minutes without troubleshooting.
20 minutes (Score:4, Informative)
- copy old
- "debconf-get-selections" on old computer and pipe to "debconf-set-selections" on new one
- "dpkg -l |grep ^ii" on old computer and replicate the package list
- go drink some tea while the apt-get proceeds
- done!
I carried my home dir with its settings across about three or four new computers in the last eight years or so, and I didn't have to tweak things very much. Only upgrading major components require some maintenance, but other than that, it's simple.
Home (Score:5, Informative)
Classic-ize windows display settings
Give the system an enema (remove all the windows default crap, any ads or OEM-given crap)
Install the necessities (ad-aware, avg, firefox, powertools, other windows registry hax)
Install a few benchmark things and test (diablo 2, doom, zsnes, media player classic + fddshow)
Dump data from old backup. (Over my last 3 installs this was via diskettes, then CDrs, then DVDrs). Then over the next week I'll just install new stuff as needed. Winamp, AIM, mud client -- I save all these executables but by the time you do a reinstall they're outdated anyway.
OS X Plus Firewire (Score:5, Informative)
You boot the old computer in Firewire mode by holding down a key. You plug in a firewire cable to the new computer. You click the install from old computer button. You go get some coffee and a bagel.
So basically, it takes me about 60 seconds and it takes the computer an hour or so. That includes pulling over my Windows and Linux desktop installs within a VM. Seriously, this is one of the main reasons OS X is my base workstation OS instead of Linux. Who wants to waste a bunch of time manually copying things over, only to find not all of it works anyway and you still have to reinstall a few things and tweak a few more?
Windows Update (Score:5, Informative)
I have reinstalled XP a few times, from an SP1 disc. Visit Windows Update. It can't Update until I install some ActiveX stuff so I can use the latest version of the site. That done, it recommends maybe 50 or 60 updates. Reboot. Go back to the site, spend a half hour downloading SP2 and another 2 installing it. Reboot. Go back to the site. More updates, maybe only a dozen this time. Reboot. IE7. Reboot. Patch for IE7. Possibly a couple of driver updates. Reboot.
And if you leave to go to the store without accepting the EULA for the patch....more wasted time. And this whole process is just to secure the machine, no app install of setup or tweaking.
Vista seems slightly better in this regard as it can download updates during the install process, but it still isn't up to the level that most Linux distros are.
I don't even know what the OSX install process looks like, or if there even is one. And I own more Macs than anything else.
Re:20 minutes (Score:5, Informative)
dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt on old machine,
then do:
dpkg --set-selections packages.txt on new machine,
then do:
apt-get dselect-upgrade on new machine.
Re:On linux... (Score:3, Informative)
I keep finding things to continue tweaking it. Earlier this year Flash 9 is out. For my kids, just last month the MTP lib came out so they can sync their Zen player. I just found a decent replacement for my stage light console program and I'm just now getting it compiled and installed (Q-Light).
Not bad as a nubie since I first installed Ubuntu when Dapper came out.
Re:Windows Update (Score:3, Informative)
No no. Download the SP2 update on another machine and burn it on to a CD.
Yank the network cable. Install XP from your install media (SP1). Insert SP2 disc and run the update from there. You are now (relatively) safe from network attack -- even better if you're behind NAT. Crank up the Windows firewall to "fsck off, dickweed!" plug in the network cable and visit Windows Update.
By installing SP2 first, you save yourself the trouble of downloading/installing fixes from Windows Update that SP2 already has.
Schwab
On Windows (Score:5, Informative)
At this point, you have a usable machine. If it's my machine (and even if it isn't my machine), I usually install the following software:
Schwab
Re:OS X Plus Firewire (Score:2, Informative)
This is on of the reasons I changed to Macs after 8 years on SuSE Linux. It being a BSD of sorts also helped my decision
When I replaced the iMacG5 with a MacBook Pro I did as you mentioned and everything was exactly the same, down to the position of the files on my desktop and all settings, installed apps, etc. etc. It was pure paradise.
Only difference was that I made a latte with a splosh of whiskey and some brown sugar instead of coffee+bagel.
Re:On linux... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:On linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Once that was setup, all I had to do was copy it over to my Linux server and turn on/off a couple of services that I needed on my server but not on my laptop. I mean *literally* just copied the root partition.
It then ran perfectly with all my user and
When I wanted to set up another machine, I used the same root image and only had to edit a small handfull of files to change the machine name/IP address and to change a couple of passswords.
When I upgrade to another machine, all I will need to do is copy (or even just physically move) my hard-disks.
With Windoze, because of the dang registry, you can't just copy or move disks without corrupting everything. Also, since customization is done through menus and stored in obscure parts of the registry, you can't just copy over and/or edit individual config files. Instead, you need to reinstall each application individually and then individually run the program and customize the options by going through endless menus.
Mounted Home (Score:5, Informative)
Re:3 days (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, unless you're inflicting pain on the penguin, but given my own installation experience I think you're the one getting the pain... and apparently enjoying it.
Re:On linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:On a Mac: 4 hours... (Score:3, Informative)
1st hit:
http://metissian.com/projects/macosx/subversion/ [metissian.com]
Nice installer:
http://metissian.com/downloads/macosx/subversion/
Re:On linux... (Score:5, Informative)
Contrast that to the last new Windows machine (XP) I bought, when I had to move everything by hand, reset everything by hand, and spent about a week reinstalling each and every application I used... by hand.
Re:Windows Update (Score:3, Informative)
Well, one thing they do to avoid being complete pricks is roll all the security updates and bug fixes into the latest point upgrade so you only download that instead of every single update since 2001. If you connect Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.0 to Software Update, you're going to get a Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.9 update, probably an AirPort and Quicktime update, an iTunes update, and updates for whatever Apple apps you have installed.
Re:OS X Plus Firewire (Score:3, Informative)
You can go one better; just clone your one standard machine, and save the disk image. That way if you have two machines (laptop and desktop, for instance, or loaner while one's in the shop), you can just put the new machine in target disk mode, and do an ASR restore. Probably only worth the effort if you're running a lab or office worth of machines, but still pretty cool, as you can set various values to be configured on a per-machine basis while the rest is just duped straight across.
The best part is that it works like it should; the computer works, and I go off and think somewhere.
And for you Unix guys going, "and.....", it didn't even involve pulling the old system disk and using an intermediate system to dd it across. It Just Works. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find my black turtleneck and attend the Cult's weekly meeting.
not too long ... linux user (Score:3, Informative)
Desktops: not much more than 'cd
Re:OS X Plus Firewire (Score:2, Informative)
Each time I get a new mac, it takes only an hour or two to let the machine copy every application, account and preference from my old mac to the new one. And sure enough, I instantly feel at home on the new machine, except with more power under the hood.
And if I'm too excited to wait for as long as one hour, I can simply boot from my external firewire drive, which is a regularly updated backup of my main HD.
Unattended Installation (Score:1, Informative)
I recommend checking out the guide at http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/ [msfn.org] for more information. As well there are many helpful forum trolls to give you advice on issues you might come up against.
It takes a bit of time/effort to get it working. But it is worth it in the end to be able to slip in a CD or a DVD and coming back to a fully functioning system tailored to your liking.
Good luck.
Re:On linux... (Score:3, Informative)
Definitely gotta have my .vimrc too. It's followed me for a long time.
What I do is keep sort of a manifest-slash-backup-script of my important stuff. I never want to backup my entire home dir because directories like ~/.kde can produce some very undesirable results when restoring it. So I just keep a script like:
I just use an nfs or sshfs mount as my destination. So when I restore it, I can just install my core apps and be ready to roll.
I do other things to make my visual tweaks faster. For example, I like to rotate my backgrounds often amongst a collection of wallpapers, so I have a directory ~/Documents/Pictures/Wallpapers/rotate which contains symlinks to my favorite images so I can just go in and select-all in that directory.
I use a combination of google's browser sync (for cookies and such) and yahoo's toolbar (really just for bookmarks) so my browser is instantly usable even if I don't keep my entire ~/.mozilla directory.
Probably a good testimony to how well that works for me is when my laptop hd died a couple of months ago. While the new drive was in transit, I was just booting from the kubuntu cd and running linux from there. I had enough space on the ram disk to install firefox and a couple of the other packages I needed and it worked fairly well.
Re:On linux... (Score:4, Informative)
>>they created it in the FIRST place was because Bill
>>Gates et al thought their third-rate operating system was so special and important
>>that to protect it from nasty "pirates" they had
>>to essentially lobotomize it.
>Um, no, not quite
Oh, I disagree.
Consider these related points:
1. All other commercially available operating systems use flat files to store configuration information. And almost every other operating system out there works better than Windows in a variety of ways, not least of which being performance.
2. Operating systems that use flat files to store configuration information are trivially easy to back up. They're also trivially easy to clone and distribute.
3. People who run operating systems that use flat files tend to READ those flat files. The registry, on the other hand, is so huge and byzantine (again, WHY???) that finding entries in it is like going on a fishing expedition. Nobody really knows what's in their registry. I believe this is by design, not by accident.
4. The registry is IN FACT used to make piracy difficult. Virtually every piece of commercial Windows software stores registration information in the registry, usually in literally dozens of different locations so that to clear out a botched install you have to use a search tool and guess at all the possible names the company may have used for its keys. First, do you think Microsoft isn't doing the same thing??? Second, do you think this isn't by design???
5. When a hacker creates a Word Macro Virus and the cops catch him like, a week later, how do you think that happens? Word, installed, puts serial number information in the registry and later, into documents. Again, by design.
6. When they spent millions of dollars building Windows 95 and created long filename support, do you think it was by mistake that they just happened to leave long filename support out of their new version of DOS? Or that you couldn't boot to a command prompt that had long filename support? Again, it was to make piracy difficult. At the time, you couldn't boot to a CD. You had to use a floppy. Live CDs didn't even exist. And there was NO WAY to boot with a floppy and get long filename support. So where before you could use pkzip to zip up your whole windows and dos directory and back up your system to about twenty floppies, with Windows 95 you were basically hosed. Even if you DID zip up all the directories, when you unzipped them during the restore process they'd look like "Progra~1" instead of "Program Files" and you'd be hosed.
IF YOU ARE CORRECT, you must have a reasonable justification for the use of the registry that is credibly better than using a flat-file approach. I bet you don't have one.
Re:On linux... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm as much an MS hater as anyone else, but still, "Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence", or something like that, anyways.
Re:On linux... (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm... OSX would be one to disagree with you there (netinfo [wikipedia.org] is not in flat files and neither is LDAP). OSX does have flat files on the BSD end but they aren't the ones you configure with the gui. The os that used netinfo before OSX was NeXTSTEP and everyone thought it was a bad idea then too. There is also the gconf [wikipedia.org] database that Gnome uses, while similar to the registry in function it uses the file system directories for hierarchy and xml files for storage so it is easy to edit by hand if you need to.
Not to knock flat files (I prefer them myself) but one could say the same about finding them. The registry was designed to be a structured database of configuration data, Microsoft just screwed things up badly with it.
Umm... no. If you look at Microsoft's reference documentation on how companies should and should not use the windows registry I think you will note that the locations where things *should* be stored are quite well defined. Microsoft themselves may have issues with using there own standards but I have never found anti-piracy to be one of their reasons for being incompetent.
Now you are starting to sound paranoid. Can you point out the place in a word document where a serial number is kept? Give me a link or I call BS. I know it is stored in the registry (Where else do you think it would be?) but so are several other bits of license related data. HINT: it is not called an install code, it's called a license key. If you removed the key from the registry it stops working and asks for a key when you start it up.
IIRC this feature was included in the version of DOS that shipped with Windows 98 so that must not have been their reasoning otherwise they would have left it out.
Hmm... I can think of 2 design decisions why a databased approach to configuration has advantages.
Not long (Score:2, Informative)