Choosing and Installing the Computer's Software
costs that are often charged to your computer, such as the so-called "Windows Tax", charged to
every new OEM computer. Installing operating systems (OSes) and software to your own cifications can greatly improve performance. This section will attempt to explore the key options that you have when setting up your computer for use. Operating System(s)
The first thing to do after you have a working PC is installed an operating system. You have the option of installing more than one, as well. The first option, and the one taken by most people, is to just install Microsoft Windows, of which the current version is Windows 7. Another option is to install a GNU system (a Free Software operating system). There are many other operating systems to choose from as well, notably the BSDs, which are also open-source operating systems. Note that you also have the option of installing more than one operating system in what is called a multiboot setup.
If you are going to install both, install Windows 7 first. This is because Windows overwrites the software that GNU requires to start up, even if something's already there. If you install
Windows before all of your other systems, you will be able to easily boot into all of them.
Installing Windows
The installation of Windows is relatively easy. Push the button on the front of the PC, put the CD-ROM in your optical drive, and follow the on-screen instructions. Partitioning the hard disk(s) is different if you are dual-booting or going with just 7. If you are doing a plain Windows-only install, just allocate all of the hard drives to 7. If you are dual-booting, some extra considerations must be taken. NTFS, which is the default Filesystem that Windows uses, is not very well supported outside of Windows. GNU/Linux support is up to the point where we can read, but not write, an NTFS filesystem. However, it does have some advantages over FAT32, in that a 4GB file size limit no longer exists. Likewise, Windows has no support for any of the standard GNU Filesystems. If you are going to be switching between the two frequently, then it might be in your best interest to create aFAT32 for both operating systems to use. When it comes the time to partition the hard disk(s), remember to leave space for GNU (if you're installing it - a good amount is somewhere in the order of a third of your total hard disk space). You may want to have a spare FAT32 partition (of around 1 third of your disk space), on which to share documents between Windows and GNU/Linux, as Linux's support for NTFS disks is good, but not perfect. You should also modify the table as necessary - you may not need as much space for Windows or you may need more in your FAT32 transfer area. But you must ensure that you leave at least 3GB for your Windows installation since the standard installation of Windows takes up about 2 GB of hard drive space, and it is always wise to leave a bit extra on, to allow for any changes that may occur.
Some people find that it's useful to create separate partitions for the operating system and data. This means that if something goes wrong with the operating system, the partition can be
formatted and the operating system can be reinstalled without possibly losing data.
If you are installing Windows on a RAID drive, or a SATA drive in most cases you are going to have to provide the Windows installer drivers to access the hard drive on the raid controller.
To do this while Windows install is at the blue screen, at the bottom, it will read "Press F6 to
install any third party SCSI or RAID drivers." Later during the install, it will come up with a screen that says "Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed
in your system, or you have chosen to manually specify an adapter." At this screen you are going to want to hit 'S' to "Specify Additional Device," another screen will pop up asking you to insert the floppy disk containing the drivers, followed by a screen asking you to choose the appropriate driver out of the set contained on the disk (most disks will have a for each of the major Windows operating systems).
Installing GNU
Before installing GNU, you need to be aware there is no single version of GNU. There are many, each containing many different quirks of operation. The GNU Distribution that is right for you is something only you can decide, although there are many popular ones. Some of the more frequently suggested distributions include Suse Linux, Mandriva Linux, Ubuntu(based on Debian), and Fedora Core Linux - since they are generally the more user-friendly ones.Distributions that tend to be more overwhelming to new-comers are:
Debian, and Slackware - but they certainly have many advantages of their own. This is by no means a complete list, and there are many other distributions that you can select from: for more help in picking a distribution see A Neutral Look at Operating Systems/Linux
or
Distrowatch. If you are more comfortable with computers, Gentoo will arguably run fastest,
but it is much harder to install. Installation instructions for GNU vary greatly between the distributions, so no instructions will be given here, but look out for a section that installs software called GRUB or LILO. Upon
installation, you should be prompted about whether you have other operating systems (OS)
(such as Windows), make sure that all operating systems on your computer are listed (otherwise, you won't be able to boot them). The install for most distributions takes up about 4
gigabytes of hard drive space, however, this figure varies from distribution to distribution.
If you are unsure as to whether GNU is for you or not, many distributions (most notably
Knoppix and Ubuntu) provide a LiveCD which boots a fully working GNU system from a CD, without affecting the data on your computer. This can be useful in evaluating whether GNU can provide what you need. However, it must be remembered that distributions of GNU can be anything up to 5 CDs, so a single CD will not accurately reflect the breadth of software available on the platform.
Security
After installation, your priority should be security.A newly installed Windows XP computer can be attacked within moments of being connected
to the Internet. The SANS Institute provides a PDF guide called
Windows XP: Surviving the
First Day
, which explains how to update a new Windows XP box without immediately becoming infected by viruses and worms. To avoid having your new computer attacked, install a firewall, or activate the one that came with your OS. Both Windows and GNU have in-built
firewalls: In some GNU distributions, it is enabled by default; in Windows XP Service Pack 2,
it can be found in the program in your control panel.
As soon as you are on the internet, run your operating system's update facility to fix any security flaws that have been found since your CD was printed. To do this under Windows,
simply click on your Start Menu, click on 'All Programs', and then click on Windows Update,
and follow the instructions. If you use other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office, then
it can be valuable to use
Microsoft Update, which covers updates for all Microsoft products.
For either of these, you can also switch on "Automatic Updates" from the Security Center
the program mentioned above.
The method of updating your GNU Operating system varies greatly from distribution to
distribution. For Fedora Core, simply issue a "yum update" as root on the command prompt. It
is perhaps easiest to update the OS from Debian-based distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu
and Linspire, where you simply have to type
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
into a terminal window, and if your computer will be switched on overnight, it is very easy to
set these programs to run automatically in the background.
Programs such as Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, and Anti-Spyware of commercial quality or better can be found quite easily: Windows programs are listed in the software section below. (Usually
these are not needed for GNU OS')
An important point to note is that security software is one of the more important things to be set
up rather than other applications first. In one case, a freshly-assembled computer running
Windows XP with no security precautions taken was hit by the Blaster worm as soon as it was
connected to the Internet, and has picked up a variety of spyware after only visiting a few
websites; forcing the owner to reformat the hard disk and redo installation of the OS.
Drivers
Now that your computer is relatively secure, you will need to installdrivers for your various
pieces of hardware.
Instead of installing drivers from CDs, it is generally a better idea to download drivers from the
Internet (if you have a broadband connection) because these are usually more up to date, and can be significantly faster, and can improve your computer's efficiency greatly. Even if something seems to work fine, downloading new drivers may help. Your computer may be working perfectly, but with slightly slower performance. Downloading drivers for your motherboard's chipset can often help. Finally, many monitors will not go above a certain
refresh rate without their driver, which may be of great concern to gamers.
If you are using Windows, you can generally find drivers for your selected hardware at its manufacturer's website. Most GNU computers already have all of the drivers installed, with the exception of proprietary modem and graphics drivers. If you can't find your required driver, a
simple Google search will yield the best results.
Software
Finally, load it with some good quality software. The majority of what you need will be available for free, on both forms of the operating system, including Word Processors and Anti-Virus. The following are recommendations for each system:
Windows
Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Slimbrowser or Opera(make sure that if you get MozillaFirefox or Slimbrowser you look into extensions)
E-mail Client: Mozilla Thunderbird
Office Suite: OpenOffice.org
Disc Tools: CD Burner XP or Burn at Once
Instant Messenger: Gaim or Trillian
Media Player: Nullsoft Winamp or iTunes or SnackAmp
Anti-virus: AVG Anti-Virus, Free Edition, or avast!Antivirus Home edition or ClamWin
Security: Spybot: Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware Personal Edition, K9 Anti-Spam, Microsoft AntiSpyware, ZoneAlarm Free Edition
Compression: 7-Zip,IZArc,TUGZi
Desktop Search: Google Desktop Search or Copernic or Yahoo Desktop Search or Windows Desktop Search
GNU
Unlike with Windows, on a GNU system, the majority of the software that you will want for your computer is already included. You will probably not need to download anything. MostGNU distributions have a package manager (Portage for Gentoo, APT for Debian-based distros
like Debian and Ubuntu, etc.) For some distributions, simply download RPM files from your distribution's website.
If they aren't already installed by your distribution:
Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Opera(make sure that if you get Mozilla Firefox you look into extensions)
EMail Client: Mozilla Thunderbird
Office Suite: OpenOffice.org
Instant Messenger: Gaim
Media Players: Rhythmbox, MPD, amaroK (depending on what desktop environment you use or Beep Media Player
Movie/DVD Player: Xine or MPlayer
Desktop Environment: KDE or GNOME
Windows Compatibility Layer: Wine
x86 Emulator/Virtualiser: QEMU
PPC Emulator: PearPC
Additional Software
For additional software some excellent sources of free and open-source software areTucows http://www.tucows.com/ a downloads site with freeware, shareware, open-source as well as commercial software. It has many mirrors all over the world for speedy downloads from local servers.
SourceForge http://www.sourceforge.net/ a site featuring many OpenSource projects. You can start your own, or get software for almost every need. Most projects have GNU and Windows versions. The mirror system isn't as large as Tucows, but you can still usually get a mirror on the same continent. Table of equivalents http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml can be useful if you want to know more about specific programs when changing from Windows to GNU or vice-versa
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