Getting moved into a new machine
General January 31st, 2005
As I’ve hinted in a few posts, I received new machines for work. (Thanks Chuck!) I got a laptop and a desktop, both Dells, and I’m happy with both of them. I setup the desktop first, and was able to install Fedora Core 3 on it and move my existing home directory and configurations over to it fairly easy. My previous desktop was running RedHat 9, but things pretty much stayed the same. The big boost is the dual-monitors, which are growing more on me everyday. The key point on the desktop is I could move in without doing a lot of stuff.
I unpackaged the laptop this afternoon and started working on it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it came with Windows XP Professional with SP2. I figured we would have ordered the cheapest OS possible and done a reinstall when it arrived (since we have licenses for all the MS software we need.) Because everything was pre-installed, I can just work from there. It’s even nicer that the built in BIOS/OS functions, like the volume buttons and such, work out of the box. But, now it’s time to install software. What’s the first must-install packages you add? Here’s what I did so far:
1. McAfee VirusSan (8.0 version)
2. Firefox
3. WinZip
4. WinAmp
Trillian and Cygwin will be added soon. Acrobat, Flash, and Thunderbird will be installed soon too. The VPN client, some sort of SSH client (putty or the SSH.com licensed one,) TeraTerm Pro (for serial console access,) Microsoft Office, iTunes, QuickTime, Tivo Desktop (heh heh)… Anything else I’m missing?
About
Why do you need WinZip when XP handles compressed files on its own?
There’s a right-click-drag option on .zip files WinZip adds that I’m addicted to. It’s painful for me to work without it. Besides, we have the license at work - I just need to dig up a key.
eh, if you right click and choose send to - compressed (zipped) folder it does the same thing..
but I thought you were installing linux on your laptop
Aren’t new machines fun?
Funny, you list the same two pieces of software I would do. Antivirus and then Firefox. Though I’d probably follow that up with an SSH client and then the Office package. Of late, I’ve been adding my virtual desktop tool as an initial install as well.
Speaking of which, here is the link for that software I mentioned.
http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/
I would have to agree with your installs Dave, except winamp that is. Why do you need that when you have Itunes?
Because Winamp has security vulnerabilities, and those are always fun!!1!
Though I have iTunes installed, I’ve never used the player. However, I’ve heard that it sucks when compared to Winamp. Also, Winamp really whips the llama’s ass.
[...] pe Shakespeare, I would take this puppy for a ride. After reading Kenny’s post aboutwhat to install on a new machine I got the wireless up and run [...]
[...] Now if only I weren’t a monkey trying to type Shakespeare, I would take this puppy for a ride. After reading Kenny’s post aboutwhat to install on a new machine I got the wireless up and running, and started downloading things, in this order: 1)AIM (so I could ask others what to download) 2)Firefox, 2a)Windows Updates 3)Spybot 4)Ad-aware 5)iTunes (transferred my music over from the old machine, too) [...]
Man, what a well set-up website!