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How Long Does it Take You to Tweak a New Box?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-never-ending-process dept.

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?"

12 of 463 comments (clear)

  1. On linux... by peterpi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nobody's found out how long it takes on linux, they're still working at it! ;P

    1. Re:On linux... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

      Windows - Tweaks for about 4-6 hours and spending about $400 on extra applications
      OS X - Tweaks for about 1-2 hours and spending about $600 on extra applications
      Linux - Change desktop background. Done.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    2. Re:On linux... by paeanblack · · Score: 5, Funny

      1h 45m from install to having a working, up to date and configured system running http, https, php, java, tomcat, mysql, mail server, ftp server, remote X access

      Connect a fresh Windows ME box to the net and you can get all that in 1 minute and 45 seconds.

    3. Re:On linux... by Sparr0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why arent you just keeping your /home partition backed up? When I installed Kubuntu I let it run overnight with a huge batch of things to download and install. That took about 10 minutes to set up. Then another 15 minutes to copy /home from my old machine. So, call it 25 minutes of work for a fully customized and tweaked installation?

    4. Re:On linux... by aputerguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Agreed. I set up up, customized, and played with FC6 running cygwin on my underpowered XP laptop.
      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 /etc configurations intact.

      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.

    5. Re:On linux... by shmlco · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, the last time I moved from a Powerbook to a MacBook Pro I used Tiger's Migration Assistant. After the copy finished (about 2 hours) almost everything (applications, preferences, backgrounds, altered command keys, control panel changes, accounts, folder layouts, etc.) was there. I had to reinstall Dreamweaver and Photoshop since their registration mechanisms detected the new hardware and "broke", but other than that I was impressed to no end.

      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.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    6. Re:On linux... by drachenstern · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The registry had two important goals, consolidating configuration information into one location with an easy storage and retrieval method, and application interopability enhancement.

      Ya know why CLSID is such a large part of the registry? It has nothing to do with preventing piracy.

      Ya know how CurrentControlSet is so thorough, and how it's off on it's own branch of HKLM? Yeah, if you were to replace all of those values with the correct values for the machine that you were moving to (primarily system driver and hardware reference information) then you could in theory just boot windows back up without ever having a glitch. Theory though, not practice. The theory is sound because MS designed the registry to be modular. It's not their fault that other companies don't respect the sandboxing that MS set up, and it's hard for them to enforce that people play nice, but look at the strides they've made via their IDEs (which is where most people write the said crappy software) and .NET v2.

      Most of the problems that people have with drivers or program interoperability stem from those two registry branches anyways, is another good reason why all IT folks should be able to recite the major points of the registry, as well as knowing all the places where windows looks when it goes to start the various functions.

      This is one of the few shortcomings I can find with the registry, but it's not the fault of MS as a whole, but rather the failure of different groups to consolidate on one storage location for important settings. Then again, two of the reasons why there were so many different locations where settings may have been in the flat files were for security through obfuscation and because sometimes the maximum size you could read on a flat file could have been exceeded due to the number of settings that you might want, so MS designers purposely chose to store info in multiple places, such as the load differences between system.ini and win.ini.

      So I've been going in this direction to come back to, the registry didn't have anything to do with limiting piracy, if anything, it's the reason why so many people want to run Windows, even if they don't want to pay for it. The real thing that seems to be annoying to so many geeks is the oobe libs.

      Need I go further?

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      2^3 * 31 * 647
  2. Personally by geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not very long. After years of working with computers (over 20), I've found keeping it simple is best. I change the background, arrange icons how I like and that's about it these days, whether it's windows or OSX or Ubuntu. If the OS can't accommodate this simple style I don't use it.

  3. Home by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's the clincher. About a week, simply because I don't do it that often (once every 3-4 years) that I don't have a list

    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.

  4. OS X Plus Firewire by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · 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?

  5. Re:20 minutes by umeboshi · · Score: 5, Informative

    For replicating the package list, try this:
      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.

  6. On Windows by ewhac · · Score: 5, Informative
    I've done this a couple of times recently -- once for my new machine, and once for a friend of mine whose machine got pwn3d. My checklist works roughly like this:
    • Perform an inventory of the hardware in the machine. Note especially the vendor and model number of the major components. You'll need this later.
    • Establish partitions on the boot drive (only if I'm dual-booting Linux or BeOS or something).
    • Yank network cable.
    • Install Windows from installation media. This takes a ridiculous amount of time, considering that most of the work is (should be) simply copying files. Reboot.
    • Install Service Pack 2, which I conveniently have on a separate CD I burned. Reboot.
    • Crank up Windows firewall to highest setting, or moral equivalent thereof (I'm behind a NAT router, so that works).
    • Visit Windows Update, and download all security and bug fixes. Duration depends on connection speed, but it can easily consume an hour. Reboot.
    • Using the hardware inventory you prepared earlier: for $item in $inventory ; do
      • Visit hardware vendor's site.
      • Locate, download, and install latest device driver(s) for $item.
      • Reboot.
    • done

    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

    --
    Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions