I was recently given a second 20″ iMac 2007 to go along with the first. They’re beautiful machines, but Apple doesn’t want me to keep using it, so they’re making all their software not work on it anymore. So I’ve been wondering how they’d do as Linux machines.
Apparently, it isn’t very easy to get an old iMac to boot a Linux system. I don’t think I have a Firewire cable, much less a HDD enclosure with a Firewire interface.
I guess I’m going to have to put together a master guide from all these entries. Here’s something else you should do:
$ brew install coreutils findutils gnu-tar gnu-sed gawk gnutls gnu-indent gnu-getopt
(Here’s somebody’s master guide.)
Here in one place is my list of things to do after installing a new operating system.
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install ssh
Then try to ssh into the computer. If needed, apply the fix to Zeroconf / Avahi / NSSwitch.conf.
Next:
$ sudo apt install git
$ sudo apt install colordiff
$ sudo apt install libreadline-dev
$ sudo apt install vim vim-gtk3
$ sudo sudo apt-get --purge --reinstall install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Then I got things ready for ruby. I prefer rbenv:
$ sudo apt install libssl-dev zlib1g-dev # needed for ruby
$ sudo apt install sqlite3 sqlite3-pcre
$ cd ; git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv.git .rbenv
$ git clone git://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
$ rbenv install -l
$ rbenv install 2.4.1 # (as of April 28, 2017)
$ hash -r # rehash your environment
P.S. if later on you want a later version of ruby, the way you update the list of installable ruby’s is:
$
cd ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build ; git pull
Then use gdebi to install Google Chrome.
$ sudo apt install gdebi
$ apt install chromium-browser chromium-codecs-ffmpeg chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
$ apt install telegram-desktop
I’d love to be able to pre-populate Dropbox from a local backup when I setup a new computer. But I’m not smart enough, I guess.
$ sudo apt install antiword wv jhead
$ sudo apt install imagemagick poppler-utils
I had some trouble with the laptop (an HP x360 13-A113CL) upgrading to Ubuntu 17.04. But something I did along the way gave the Windows an opening to screw me up, and it did. (I have Windows waiting to screw things up, like a Virus you have to pay for and then validate with a license key, sitting there in a dual-boot configuration (unseen and unused since sometime last September). The simplest way to straighten things out was to reinstall Linux. But things keep changing in the hardware-meant-to-run Windows world, so…
The laptop was only half the problem. I was doing some other work on a completely different PC and and wanted watch YouTube videos and look at manuals on the computer next to me. But it was a Windows PC (a Lenovo H535), and it had a weird audio problem where two drivers were contesting over who was in charge of sound output, so I could only get sound with the first video. After fighting that for half an hour, I said, okay, then, time to give this machine a real operating system.
So: here are some notes.
First, the way you get to the “BIOS” options is probably F1. Probably. (HP, Lenovo)
But it’s not BIOS, it’s UEFI and no matter what you do, you’ll wish they’d never come up with Secure Boot, especially if you want Linux.
So you’ll probably want to use Ubuntu Boot Repair.
Windows 10 is, in some ways, worse(!) than 8.1 was. (Really!)
Since I don’t have time to keep sinking into Windows, here’s what I’ve been doing:
Once you’ve done all that, remember to install an ssh server:
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
Also, install rbenv (and ruby-build) and a ruby or two. Plus your favorite gems.
It’s time to upgrade your Ubuntu machines.
8 things to do after installing Ubuntu 15.04. One of the items is to add a tweak tool, which reminded me of Unsettings.
I’m working on a similar list for Windows, except (a) nobody gets to install Windows, you have to buy a PC with it preinstalled, and (b) there are about 300 things you have to do next.
Speaking of Ubuntu…. I barely know what a .deb is, so this article was complete gibberish to me, with all this talk about Snaps and Snappy for future releases of Ubuntu.
Bjarne Stroustrup outlines changes in store for C++ in v17. I can barely remember how awesome I used to think C++ was back in 1986. And compared to C, I guess is was, then. Today—forget about it. Just give me a scripting language.
Finally: During the 1990’s I used to be a DIY system builder, but the past decade or two I’ve been too busy and too impoverished. And there’s a lot to be said for buying something small. Still, I might get around to building something again someday. This sounds like fun:
How to upgrade to Ubuntu 14.10 from Ubuntu 14.04.
Or, how to get an ISO if that’s your preferred way.
What to do when you finish upgrading to 14.10.
How to watch YouTube on your Ubuntu machine.
Normally, I run Chrome and/or Chromium instead of Firefox, but there’s a new version of Opera too.
Here’s some tools for scanning on Linux.
How to create a UEFI bootable Ubuntu USB drive using Windows.
Or you can just get a Mac and run the all-new butt-ugly Yosemite.
Everyone knows the command line is where it’s at. Macs have had it since the beginning of Mac OSX. Windows people are slowly coming around too, with Powershell and Console2.
But what about Unix users. Any love for the graybeards? Why yes, yes there is: cool retro term. I love the jitter:
Oh, and get off my lawn! (H/T: Ubuntu Portal)
Terra Terminal Emulator. For people who rebel against learning to use Screen. We’ve come a long way from the ADM-3A.
I quit using Linux (except as a file server) almost 10 years ago, so I completely missed the Desktop wars. Apparently KDE and Gnome won, with Gnome winning the part of the Linuxphere known as Ubuntu. Which leads to all kinds of out of date help pages telling you how you used to administer a Ubuntu system (“From System Administration choose Disk Utilities”). Along with a fair few pages complaining how Gnome 2 was better, or Gnome 3 was bad but 3.6 fixed most of the problems, or whatever.
As may be. I’m a crusty old bearded Unix user, from the era of Window Managers rather than Desktop Environments. (Well, CDE begat KDE, so I guess there were Desktop Environments even back in those days, but I never worried about them.) For me, it was a big deal (with no small amount of editing config files) to move from FVWM to WindowMaker.
So what do I do? I don’t know. But I’m thinking about Xubuntu and XFCE. How’s that for rebellion? You say you want a revolution!