Given the occasion of Dhanteras has just passed us by, I presume quite a few people would have bought new computers. In fact- I’m expecting a new computer to be delivered to my lab soon. Here are some of the things I do when I have to set up a new computer for myself or any of my friends:
The Operating System
Most computers come pre-installed with Windows these days. So, by and large, the Operating System installation is taken care of. If not, and if the end user in question wishes to have Windows in the long run- the first thing I do is to install Windows.
If you’ve bought your computer recently and it came pre-installed with Windows Vista- you may have the option to upgrade to Windows 7 when it releases. (Bonus tip: You could try your hand at winning a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate at Manan’s launch party in Mumbai on October 24th). If you want Ubuntu, you can download a copy here or request a CD here.
During the Windows installation (ideally during- but you can do this after the installation also) one of the most important steps I take is to make sure that there is a separate partition made for the data and for the OS install. For Windows- the OS is installed by default in the C drive. I usually keep about 15-20GB for the C drive. The remaining space on the hard drive is kept for one or more partitions in which the data is going to be kept.
Even if I install Windows, I usually (for me- always, for others- depending on whether they want to do so) also keep an extra 10-15GB partition vacant. I install a Linux distribution in this partition- my favourite is Ubuntu. I recommend this to others because a Linux distribution serves as a great backup to boot into and gain access to your data should you face any problems with corruption or viruses with Windows. You can easily set your computer to boot into Windows by default for everyday usage- by modifying the bootloader settings. The bootloader is what enables you to select and starts which Operating System you would like to use when you turn on your computer. Prolific Ubuntu user, Aysiu’s most excellent tutorials should help you with your Ubuntu install. Again- if you’re installing only Ubuntu- make sure you have a separate partition for your data. You can do this by setting the mount point of your root directory (denoted by a single forward slash- /) to a small 10-15GB partition and setting the mount point of your data partition to “/home”.
When I get a computer for myself- I always install Linux because there are a lot of things I prefer to do only in Linux. The key here is to install Linux after you’ve installed Windows- if you’re installing Windows at all. The bootloader installed by Linux is usually much better at dealing with multiple Operating Systems than that installed by Windows. Dealing with a dedicated data partition can get tricky here. What I do is to create a separate data partition during the Windows install (let say the D drive), then log into Windows, remap all the folders in the home folder (My Documents, My Pictures, etc) to equivalent newly made folders in the D drive thus: Right Click on the folder > Properties > Location > Move > Select the equivalent folder you’ve created in the D drive. Then, during the Ubuntu install, I simply set the mount point of this partition as “/data”. Then, in order to remap the folders in the home folder here, I add entries to the fstab file. For example, if I have to remap the Documents folder in my home directory (my username is “sengupta”, so my home directory is “/home/sengupta”) to the Documents folder in “/data”, I add the following line to the fstab file (located in /etc/);
/data/Documents/ /home/sengupta/Documents/ none bind
You can modify your boot menu order by modifying the file “/boot/grub/menu.lst”. You can change the countdown time by modifying the number next to “timeout”. You can have the menu hidden by default (and have it reveal itself only if you press ESC within the countdown time, you can change the default OS selection, you can reorient the order of the Operating Systems and more. Make sure you back up your original menu.lst though. Also, you can only make changes to the menu.lst file (or for that matter to the fstab file) using superuser privileges. You can perform the two actions on the terminal thus:
sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.backup
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
I strongly suggest you have a friend around who is more experienced in these matters while you’re making such modifications to your computer.
Setting up Windows
Now that the Operating Systems have been set up, we see how to go about setting up Windows.
The first thing I do is to fire up Internet Explorer- then download and install Firefox. I then proceed to install my favourite addons. To make this easy, I’ve made them available here. The best of the lot is the addon XMarks (formerly Foxmarks). This enables you to sync your bookmarks across computers. It also syncs bookmarklets- making things even more convenient. I also download and install Opera and Google Chrome- both excellent browsers. Opera syncs my bookmarks across devices- such as my phone. Its session management features are better than any other browser I’ve come across yet and the notes feature is an excellent addition- great for research. Having access to these notes on the go is a blessing. Chrome’s raw speed and performance makes it perfect as a quick-launch/quick-read browser. At this point, there is fairly limited extensibility for Chrome compared to the others, so I use it as a secondary browser.
Here are some of the other softwares I install:
- Microsoft Office: The only real reason I still use Windows. In my honest opinion- the Office suite is their finest work yet.
- 7-Zip: A great hassle free tool to open and create most types of archive formats.
- µTorrent: A lightweight, but powerful bittorrent client for- you know- seeding Linux distributions and other FOSS software.
- VLC: A very useful media player that can play pretty much any media format you throw at it.
- Foxit Reader: An excellent alternative to Adobe’s Reader. Very fast and does not hog system resources.
- IrfanView: A small but incredibly powerful image editing application.
- Picasa: A great photo management tool- I use this to upload photos to Picasaweb (for backups), to Facebook and to Flickr.
- Security: I prefer ESET’s Smart Security suite- it’s core antivirus program, NOD32 is written extensively in Assembly which makes it fast and nonintrusive. Free antivirus programs such as AVG and Spybot are pretty good too.
- Dropbox: Excellent for backing up important files and syncing them across computers. Also allows you to share certain folders with friends.
- CCleaner: Great for maintaining your computer- helps remove unnecessary data, cleans up your registry, helps manage installations and allows you to modify which applications are launched at startup.
- iTunes/Songbird: To manage your music collection. I’ve prefer iTunes thus far primarily because of iTunes U.
Optional:
Filezilla, CutePDF, Nokia PCSuite, Notepad++, TeraCopy, Infrarecorder, Auslogics Disk Defrag
Setting up Ubuntu
I choose Ubuntu because it is, in my opinion one of the more user friendly distributions around. Of course- when I say “user” friendly- the term is very relative- it depends on the user. But generally speaking- it’s a great distribution for someone who is interesting in learning about Linux to start with.
As far as installing software is concerned- things are very simple indeed. In the Linux world, large numbers of software packages are generally housed together in “repositories” on certain Servers around the internet. These repositories are generally very well maintained and regularly updated. These repositores can be located in multiple locations. There is in fact an internal Ubuntu repository at IIT Bombay as well. For Ubuntu, there are two main ways of installing new software:
The first is a GUI based method. Open up “Add/Remove Applications” (last option under “Applications” at the top of the screen). Either search for the applications you want or scroll through a category of your choice. Select all the applications you wish to install and hit “apply changes”. That’s it. The required packages will be downloaded and installed. The second method involves the command line. Say I wish to install VLC and Opera. I can achieve that using the following command:
sudo apt-get install vlc opera
Of course- I can install as many packages as I please- by replacing “vlc opera” in the above command by the names of the packages I want. A typical command I issue to set my Ubuntu up would be this:
sudo apt-get install vim-full build-essential manpages-dev gparted scilab octave3.0 python-matplotlib python-profiler python python-scipy python-numpy python-sympy python-doc mayavi2 maxima opera vlc mplayer gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly cheese amarok ssh wine texmaker
Issue this command- leave your computer for a while to allow it to download and install everything- when you’re back- everything’s installed. Of course- there are a couple of hoops to go through if you need to install something that’s beta, or commercial- fairly simple for the most part- they usually involve adding/enabling the repository sources and authenticating them.
To know more about any of the packages, say vim-full, type:
aptitude show vim-full
In Ubuntu, you needn’t upgrade every individual package- you can upgrade all packages at once. To do this- your package manager must first be updated about the status of new packages- and then your package manager must to told to upgrade all your packages:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Distribution upgrades require a dist-upgrade. And of course- you can use a GUI if you’re more comfortable with it- Go to System > Administration >Update manager.
I keep a list of useful Ubuntu Packages here for my reference.
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