Steps for setting up a new computer

QUICKSTART

    wget http://www.rawbw.com/~acorn/bootstrap.bash
    bash ./bootstrap.bash

LINUX SPECIFIC

Install Linux

See one of the following references to

Install RedHat Fedora
Install Ubuntu (insert CD and follow instructions)

Setup SUDO

Add the following line to the /etc/sudoers file by running "visudo" as root:

<username> ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

(replace <username> with your username on the machine you are setting up)

ALSO: if tty_tickets appears on the Defaults line, turn it off with an exclamation point. For example change:

Defaults       !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn

into:

Defaults       !lecture,!tty_tickets,!fqdn

Also, to avoid typing passwords, add the NOPASSWD: part to any lines which deal with groups that you are a member of (lines starting with %).

Setup Networking

See these networking tips to set up networking on the computer.

Install cvs, make, gcc, etc

Make a backup copy of /etc/apt/sources.list sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.orig edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add a line for 'universe'

Install the following:

sudo apt-get install cvs
sudo apt-get install ssh
sudo apt-get install vim

Here it is in a single command:

sudo apt-get install cvs ssh vim

Note: whitedragon = http://198.144.206.108

Mac OSX SPECIFIC

This worked on Lion with XCode 4.3.2

Update System Software

In apple menu do "Software Update...". Do NOT blindly install all the updates! Click "Show Details" to see what is available. Just update the Mac OSX system software. (Optional: you can update other programs if you want to. Avoid updating iTunes.)

Download takes a long time. Do NOT close the laptop lid or the download will halt. Run the "System Preferences..." (from Apple menu) and set the "Energy saver" settings to never sleep when on adaptor power. When the download is complete you can set this back to a sane value.

Get XCode

Run Finder. Click Applications. Run "App Store". Search for "xcode". It should be a free download. You will need an "AppleID". That should be free too (giving them a credit card number is optional and I skipped it). Click on "Xcode" and then click it again when it says "download" or "install". It will not show you download progress. To see download progress run "App Store" again and click "Purchases" (in the "Store" menu). This will show you download status.

The download took about 2.5 hours. Again, do not close the laptop and set the power manager to not sleep while it downloads.

Set up to use gcc

When XCode is downloaded and installed you have gcc, but you cannot use it. You need to

Set the path.
- do find /Applications/Xcode.app -name gcc
- look for .../bin/gcc
- (ignore iPhoneOS paths)
- I found it in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/gcc
  (note that this is a link to llvm-gcc)
- Add this to end of PATH.
- Modify ~/.bashrc to set the PATH too.
- Modify ~/.bash_profile to source ~/.bashrc (mac does not seem to run .bashrc)
Set -I path.
- do find /Applications/Xcode.app -name include
- look for .../usr/include
- (ignore iPhoneOS paths)
- I found it in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.6.sdk/usr/include
- Modify ~/.bashrc to set ACENV_CFLAGS=-I
Set -L path.
- do find /Applications/Xcode.app -name lib
- look for .../usr/lib
- (ignore iPhoneOS paths)
- I found it in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.6.sdk/usr/lib
- Modify ~/.bashrc to set ACENV_LDFLAGS=-I

Install cvs

I could not find cvs for mac. I downloaded the source from http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/cvs and extracted it. Before running ./configure you must

add to PATH the path of gcc (see above)
export CFLAGS=$ACENV_CFLAGS
export LDFLAGS=$ACENV_LDFLAGS

Then configure, make, sudo make install should work. You may want to use --prefix=/usr/local . The default when I ran it installed it inside the /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/... tree which worked but is a little annoying because now I don't know what came from the Xcode app and what came from cvs.

WINDOWS SPECIFIC

Install cygwin

Go to http://cygwin.org
Download setup.exe
Run setup.exe
When asked, be sure to install
- gcc (C compiler) (from Development)
- cvs (from Development)
- openssh (from Net)
- vim, gvim (from Editors)
Optional, but useful
- xserver (from X)
- xterm (from X)
- ctags (from Development)
- gdb (from Development)

Install extra cygwin packages

To install extra cygwin packages that you did not install in the preceding step, just re-run the cygwin.exe program. Follow prompts (as if you are installing all over again). When prompted, select extra packages you want. Continue answering prompts. When done, the new SW is downloaded and installed.

ALL SYSTEMS

Boostrap mybin (replace CVSROOT with your own cvs server root)

export CVS_RSH=ssh
export CVSROOT=:ext:acorn@shell2.rawbw.com:/home/users/acorn/cvsroot
cd $HOME
cvs checkout mybin
cd mybin
bash bootstrap
. ~/.bashrc

Setup ROOT

setup bashrc in the /etc and /root directories with the following commands:

cd ~/mybin/env/rootdir
./_rootdir_install

(Note: there is no need to setup the etcdir in ~/mybin/env/etcdir)

Setup X Windows

Setup the keyboard repeat rate with

xset r rate 200 50

If you are using an nvidia card, download the nvidia linux driver from www.nvidia.com and run the install script. It is quite painless and easy and seems to work well. You will want to have the following entry (or something similar) in /etc/X11/XF86Config (follow the instructions from the installer program):

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
#       Driver      "nv"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
        BoardName   "NVIDIA Quadro 4 (generic)"
#       VideoRam    131072
EndSection

If you are using an ATI card, install the r128 driver (or other driver). You will need a device section in etc/X11/xorg.conf like this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
#       Driver      "ati"
        Driver      "r128"
EndSection

Add resolutions to the "Screen" section. Add the resolution(s) you want to use to each SubSection. For example:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "Generic Video Card"
    Monitor        "Generic Monitor"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       1
        Modes      "1920x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       4
        Modes      "1920x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1920x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       15
        Modes      "1920x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1920x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1920x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

If you are using a PS2 wheel-mouse then setup your /etc/X11/XF86Config file with the following entry:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

If you are using a 2-button mouse or laptop then instead use the following entry:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        #Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Setup twm Window Manager

Install twm

        sudo apt-get install twm

Set the default window manager to twm with the command

        gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/default  /usr/bin/twm --type string

Setup hdparms (speed up hard disks)

WARNING: This command can potentially destroy data on your hard drive!

Optimize the hard drive performance by adding the following line to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:

/sbin/hdparm -c1 -A1 -m16 -d1 /dev/hda

See the man page for hdparm for more info.

Alternatively if you are using Redhat and have the hdparm-RPM installed, there is a file /etc/sysconfig/harddisks with default values (and optional files like /etc/sysconfig/harddiskshda with specifics for each drive). Place the following in that file:

USE_DMA=1
MULTIPLE_IO=16
EIDE_32BIT=3
LOOKAHEAD=1
EXTRA_PARAMS=-u1

Install additional software

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and uncomment any lines for deb-src or for stuff that you may want to install.

Install additional software

Install additional software you might want. Some places to look for software:

www.google.com
packages.debian.org
www.debian.org
www.redhat.com
www.redhat.com/fedora
www.sourceorge.net
My archive cdroms and Archive directories on my other computers

Some software you might want:

sudo apt-get install pcb libgd-tools tclreadline
cvs
rcs
ctags (exuberant ctags)
the GIMP (gimp.org)
vim/gvim (www.vim.org)
mplayer (www.mplayerhq.hu)
kernel sources
ssh
sshd
ftp
web browsers
- galeon
- firefox
- mozilla
apache

Additional info

Here are some more places to look for info: