Things to Remember with a New or Reformatted PC

I had another one of my Killer Bugs of Death Xubuntu episodes recently.  The operating system ran flawlessly until I brought up the GUI (graphical interface).  It refused to allow itself to be sized correctly, no matter what I did.  Out of ideas, I installed the KDE and Gnome desktops, both of which worked flawlessly.  I purged XFCE and reinstalled, to no avail.

KDE4 sucks eggs (this is obviously all my opinion).  It looks as though someone got the bright idea to try to make linux look like Vista.  It’s so full of eye candy and nonsense that I had a lot of difficult operating it, even after two weeks.  Sick of trying to simply locate a program in all the menus, I gave up and reinstalled Xubuntu 8.10 (Invincible Ickthyopteryx) fresh from a newly-burned cd.

What follows are some tips that will apply to Ubuntu and even Windows in some spots.  I’ll add to it as I think of more.

OLD DATA (lin+Win)

As a long-term veteran of the IT Wars, I have done a lot of reinstalling of OSes.  It occurred to me way back that it would be a smart idea to keep backups of all important files.  I can’t emphasize this strongly enough.  Data backups are important but I’m talking about configuration backups.  Information that would be incredibly handy to have in an emergency, like a reformat/reinstall.

Keep it all in one place for when you need it.  Hopefully you won’t but realistically you will; it’s just a matter of when.  With all the free online storage and the rock bottom prices of flash drives and media, there’s no excuse not to keep config (and regular) backups.

You’ll want to keep backups of email settings, email and browser address books, browser configs, any special OS settings you use, and configs of any other software you use regularly or software that is tricky to set up.  You can keep text files on how to do it, if necessary.

HOME (linux)

I never paid much attention to disk partitioning before; I just took the defaults.  I read about having a separate home partition and it seemed like a good idea.  It turns out that it is a great idea.  When you have a separate home partition, you can blow away your OS and keep all of your settings and data without any effort at all.  Just remount home as /home and you’re back in business.

OPERA (lin+Win)

As of this writing, Opera is the fastest browser available.  If you have access to the old data, locate opera.adr (Win), which has your configs.  You can bring it into the new installation.   If not, there are utilities to share data between browsers that might come in handy (bookmarkbridge for linux).

Security note:  Opera defaults to Magic Wand ON.  This means that by default, the browser will save all information put into forms.  The more security conscious among us (me) will want to turn this off to help avoid data or identity theft.  The real crazies (me) also turn off cookies, javascript, popups, and Flash.

FIREFOX (lin+Win)

Firefox makes it so easy to back up and recover that there is no excuse for not doing it.  Along with every other extension you use, download FEBE (automated extension backup) and CLEO (packager), then set them up (very simple).  CLEO allows you to take a backup of one or all of your extensions and put them into one file.  This is the file you back up.  You can import this file (.xpi) into any Firefox installation and there are all of your settings and extensions.  It’s genius in its simplicity and execution.  Another handy extension is Foxmarks, which synchronizes bookmarks in as many installations of Firefox as you’d like, automatically and online.  [NOTE: not a good idea to sync personal and work bookmarks if one contains adult links.]

SOFTWARE LIST (any OS)

It’s a bit of a PITA but I keep a list of installed software.  This way I know what I have in case I have to reinstall the OS.  Trust me - when you have to reinstall, you’re going to magically forget almost every one of those special programs you love.

The software list is also a good place to document tips and tricks.  For command line folks, you can document the syntax of commands.  Remember to back this up too or it’s of little use, right?

PASSWORDS

This shouldn’t be an issue because you don’t store passwords on your computer, do you? You also don’t let your browser remember them for you either, right?

HARDWARE LIST (any OS)

It’s also a good idea to get a utility to document the machine’s hardware.  You never know when it’ll come in handy.  SIW (Win) is free and detailed.  Linux has things like lshw and lsat.  Remember to save to a file and back up.

SYSTEM SOUNDS (any OS)

I hate them.   Disable them as soon as humanly possible.  This is particularly aggravating in Windows XP, where the OS won’t LET you disable them until the OS is set up.   Ignore this if you like the noises.

EMAIL (any OS)

If you need email in a pinch, don’t forget your browser.  Opera has a built-in email client.  Firefox has an extension called Simple Mail that is just that: simple mail.  And of course there’s webmail.