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First Ten Programs on New Install?
reddigitaldragon asks: "Some people re-install once a year, but if you're anything like me your machine is formatted at least once a month. After the OS is in, then come the favorite/must have/most used programs to install. My first installations for Windows (I use it; get over it): Trillian, Winrar, Firefox, Winamp, SmartFTP, Azureus, NMap, GKrellM, PowerDVD. What are your First 10 installed programs?" What are the first 10 programs you would install on a Windows machine? How about for a Unix machine?
I use 7-zip, it is free (speech and beer) and reads and writes most archive formats, including zip, rar, tar, tgz, etc.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
bash less enlightenment wget vim screen nmap phoenix/firebird/firefox Eterm xmms
:(){
Thats about it, everything I install after a reimage of my machines!! Other things get tagged on, but those are the core!
If anyone has suggestions for alternatives, im open. But they have to be good! Im currently looking for a new .net IDE as sharpdevelop has a few bugs, and since its written in c#, i cant help fix em :(
As for UNIX, I use OpenBSD so its got a pretty sane base install. I usually drag in a few custom admin scripts ive developed over the years, and my .profile for ksh, but thats about it. The box then gets configured for its custom job.
I think you missed Windows security fixes, Adobe Acrobat and WinSCP.
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
Well, I use my PC as a game box with some browsing only (with SSH if I need to access one of the unixish machines) so here's my stuff:
10
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1
Trolling is a art,
When installing a Windows PC, it's a good idea to have The OpenCD handy. It includes (among other things) CDEx, Mozilla, GIMP, PuTTY, TightVNC and WinPT.
siener's youtube channel
Do yourself a favor: next clean install, apply XP-SP1, then Clean=(Delete LocalSettings\Temp, Windows\Temp, Defrag) & boot Knoppix and backup your partition with Partimage (to a network location mounted with NFS), if needed.
.reg file or something. Imaging with 3 or 4 gigs of apps to back up takes a long time and gets to be a pain in the ass.
Then apply all Windows Updates, and image again. Then install your drivers, and "core apps" (be very conservative), and tweak your profile a little, and image again.
Then restore one of these three images as needed, and update as needed. Install your games on a separate partition.
It gets tricky if you actually use your XP partition for real work (MSOffice, VStudio) instead of just for video editing and games and use the much superior Debian Sid for web browsing, email, and programming. Unlike games, its hard to put apps on a separate partition and simply "install" them with a
Might I suggest that you burn a firewall program onto a CD? Then the next time you reload your machine, you can install the firewall and *then* connect to the Internet.
So now I just do my mini-backup, revert to ghost image, apply pending windows/app fixes and upgrades (with a text file on my desktop to keep track as I do them the first time), install any new "needed" software, clean up stuff etc, and then make me a fresh image of that for next time.
I install Mozzie first, then I download and run Spybot Search and Destroy and run the cleanup/immunize functions, and then I install AVG. Nothing else is an "absolute" but I usually install them. (I don't install Visual Studio on other people's boxes, of course!)
John
Oh my goodness, I'm in pain just thinking about re-installing every month. I apologize for this not being a direct reply to your question, but it is (I hope) a piece of very useful advice nonetheless.
If you're re-installing on the same hardware every time, or even on identical but different hardware, I would very seriously recommend buying Norton Ghost. The personal edition is relatively inexpensive. Then, you can get your system installed in a fresh, clean way, patched up as you like it, with whatever programs you choose, and make an image of it. Store the image on a remote server, a DVD-R, split up across CD-Rs, whatever you like. The next time you want to reinstall, just boot up off the Ghost disk and restore the image.
It will save you so many painful hours of waiting, downloading patches, rebooting, downloading drivers, rebooting, rebooting again, installing programs, rebooting, rinse, repeat.
First Ten:
* LaunchBar - fast key-stroke based launcher
* OpenOffice.org
* IntelliJ IDEA - great refactoring IDE
* FireFox
* SubEthaEdit
* xcode
* Carbonized GNU/Emacs (insert joke here...)
* Propellerhead's Reason
* Omni Graffle Professional
* NetBeans
Most of the other stuff (unix tools) is already there.
Fink
Sendmail
Bring Perl Current
SpamAssassin and SpamAssassin Milter
Microsoft Office (Yuck! Please get us an Aqua Native Open Office!)
Mozilla Firefox
RealMediaBurner (as close to Nero as you're going to get)
BitTorrent
MultiDesktop
CarbonCopyCloner
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Maybe if you stop laucnhing all those "hotgirlz.jpg.exe" attachments and downloading warez you wouldn't need to install an antivirus program right away? Beleve it or not, but a virus will not just sneak into your system. It has to be put there.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I don't like 7-Zip, there are some compatibility issues I've found with encrypted Zip files, and the user interface is really clunky.
Instead, use the other free alternative, IZArc. It handles everything, plus 7-Zip, actually. The user interface is very clean and contains at least as many features as WinZip. Gets a full recommendation from me!
...
A fine text editor!
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
- Cygwin - get the POSIX environment on!
- PuTTY - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
- TightVNC - get to some other computer
- OO.o
- vim - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
- Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
- Flash
- Acrobat Reader
- StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
- Winamp - get the groove on
- MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
- MultiDesk - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
- Windows PowerToys - because every little option matters
Usually hit windowsupdate several times first, of course.More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...
Myself, I prefer to roll those into my install CD via slipstreaming. (Google for "XP slipstream hotfix" for more) That way, I get as much protection as possible OOTB.
Slip-streaming isn't possible though with those confounded restore CDs from OEMs though. Grrrr....
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Nobody in their right mind installs either of those crapware apps. Quicktime Alternative and Real Alternative work great.
I user partimage from the Linux Rescue CD, you can get it here. Works like a charm and it's free.
Cheap storage VM.
google for slipstream.
Now, serious: 7-zip is better and is Free Software.
I always install Mozilla and the PuTTY family.
Cygwin if I think I will use the machine a lot.
VIM !!!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.
One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).
I just finished creating an automatic install DVD of Windows XP Pro. On this DVD it installs Windows XP Pro, installs my programs silently, and automatically installs all patches and hotfixes. This saves me a bunch of times from doing this the manual way. Right before I wipe Windows and reinstall, I move all my important data to my second hard drive.
.NET Framework
;)
For more information please visit the MSFN Unattended XP CD at http://unattended.msfn.org/index.htm.
In keeping with the direction of the first post, here is my list of my first 10 installed programs...
1. Hotfixes and security updates galore!
2.
3. Windows Media Player 9
4. DirectX 9.0b
5. Office XP with Service Pack 3
6. TweakUI
7. Winamp 5.0.3a (no video codecs)
8. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
9. WinRAR 3.30
10. ETrust Antivirus 6.0
I have a bunch of other installed programs on the DVD, but I thought I would share only a couple.
Cheers!
How about the first 10 things you UNinstall from a fresh WinXP install?
1) Drive Indexing Service
2) System Restore Service
3) MSN Explorer
4) MSN Messenger
5) Games
6) ISP Services (who uses prodigy anymore anyway?)
7) Outlook Express
8) Internet Explorer
9) QoS Packet Scheduler Service (I never figured out what this even does...)
10) Extra services (like WMP auto DRM retrieval, MP3 player auto detector, etc)
The Stone Age did not end for lack of stones, and when the oil age ends it will not be for lack of oil. --Bjorn Lomberg
I use a thing I found over at Neowin.net that some of the guys have put together.
Autopatcher contains all of the current hotfixes and lets you change some other settings. It's great! Check it out if you have to reinstall Windows in the near future... One of the best parts for people who set up multiple puters is the ability to set all of your options as the Default settings before you burn the CD so that you don't have to check and uncheck all of your options on each computer.
So that's number 1 in my list of the first 10 things I install.
Then:
Firefox
Winamp
Miranda
UltraVNC
StrokeIt (because Mouse Gestures are too cool to be limited to Internet Browsing.)
Filezilla
OpenOffice.org
Media Player Classic
Slowview
HOSTS file from
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts
NETWORKING
* Mozilla Firefox
* Firefox extensions: RadialContext, User Agent Switcher, bookmarklets, Magpie
* Filezilla (an ftp client that looks a lot like CuteFTP)
* Klipfolio (a news ticker / rss viewer)
* Trillian (an instant messenger, with the microscopic skin)
* PuTTY (a set of SSH clients)
* Cygwin/X (a port of X11, including an X server)
MEDIA
* BSplayer (a media player that handles DivX files well, even on SMP machines)
* foobar2000 (an audio player, uglier but leaner than Winamp)
* AC3Filter (a DirectShow filter for decoding AC3 audio)
* Subtitle Workshop (for converting between subtitle files of different formats)
* HACP (a lightweight cd player that understands CD text and online CD databases)
* IrfanView (an image viewer similar to ACD See)
* XnView (another image viewer)
* Exact Audio Copy (an excellent CD audio extractor)
* Real Alternative (a replacement for Real Player, without the bloat)
UTILITY
* Ad-Aware (for finding and removing spyware from your computer)
* Spybot - Search & Destroy (another spyware removal program)
* AVG Anti-Virus (not crashy like Norton AV, but updated less frequently)
* IZArc (an archive & file compression utility similar to WinZip)
* pdf995 (for easily converting your documents to Adobe PDF files)
* ListXP (a lightweight raw file viewer modeled after Vernon D. Buerg's list for DOS)
I reinstalled my sons Win2k box, (dual boot Linux) applied all patches, defragged, and shut down.
Booted into Knoppix, made a bz2 compressed image of both his installs in ~5 minutes. Burned to 2 CDs.
Wrote it back to disk, worked fine. Took ~3 min to overwrite.
two things here. One: the bzipped image is a file, just as 'easy to work with' as a .gho file, and Two: Ghost doesn't make disk images, it only copies files into that monolithic .gho. That's actually one of the primary differences between ghost and dd -- you don't get anything but allocated files with ghost, and for this reason ghost only supports certain filesystem types (though indeed they get most of the big ones, ntfs, fat, fat32, and ext2) but dd doesn't care what it's copying -- filesystem or not -- "Them's all just bits" God forbid that you would try to use a ghost image for forensic analysis, but dd, that's the good stuff for that. If you just want a backup of your working hard drive, ghost or a like alternative 'file' imaging program is probably what you're looking for. If you want the story that the unused portion of a hard drive can tell you, then dd it. Also, to my knowledge, bzip2 doesn't only 'not know enough about ntfs' it simply compresses an input data stream to an output datastream, so it's not supposed to 'know enough about' any filesystem at all, it doesn't know about ext2 or 3 or ReiserFS either...
Speak for yourself.
You need to get yourself a copy of Windows XP 120 day evaluation edition. It's free to order from the website and you can activate it and update it online as it's a legitimate version with its own product key. It is licensed for 10 computers, so I figure I can install it 10 times in a row on the same computer instead!
If you're in the UK you can order just about every microsoft product from free from this page. I can't find the US link, but search for windows xp evaluation edition.
While you're there, order yourself a security update CD, it saves a hell of a lot of downloading. (I don't know why MS isn't forced to post these to every windows user.)
A latent existence
How about the first 10 things you UNinstall from a fresh WinXP install?
2) System Restore Service
I used to wonder what System Restore does, but apparently it saves backups of your registry on your hard drive when various things happen, such as installing a hotfix or Windows Installer package. This has saved me a couple times when the registry got corrupted; a simple boot into recovery mode and copying over the HKLM registry file fixed things (of course, the problem of corruption still remains). Keep that in mind when you disable System Restore.
It's a huge index of all your files designed to help you search them faster, how often do you need find? Can you wait an extra 15 seconds or is it worth a couple of hundred meg of space on your disk?
cp? *shrug* dd? Meh.
/dev/hda | bzip2 > Image.bz2
cat's my tool of choice.
cat
Image-based Backup and compression, without the hefty expense. Add in gpg to that chain, and it's encrypted, too.
__
Okay, back on-topic.
1: OpenOffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org
2: Winamp
http://www.winamp.com
3: Mozilla
http://www.mozilla.org
4: SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com
5: Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org
6: Trillian
http://www.trillian.cc
7: 7-Zip
http://www.7-zip.org
8: Really Slick Screensavers
http://www.reallyslick.com
9: X-Setup
http://www.xteq.com
10: BigFix
http://www.bigfix.com
I know number 4 is two proggies, but I figure that they're closely related enough to be considered one solution.
The Penguin Producer