1 Brain Dump

Let us just think about laptops for the moment. Imagine a case when you avoid messing with the built in hard drive or solid state file systems. Visit a friend or family and just plan on using their computer. As long as you can avoid pitfalls from DRM'ed hardware, just bring along a flash stick and boot from it instead.

Some of these operations require root priveledges.

First gather your device using one of the following commands.

df -h
      lsblk -io LABEL,NAME,TYPE,MODEL,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT,FSTYPE

If I often reuse the device, sometimes wiping out everything will prevent misconfigurations:

//try
      sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdn bs=2048 count=32 && sync
      //or
      sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdn bs=2048 count=32 oflag=dsync
      //or tangent
      sudo time sh -c "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdn bs=8k count=2000000 && sync"

Then, replace the sdn device with the one you found.

dd bs=2048 status=progress if=~/foo.img of=/dev/sdn

The following link targets Raspberry Pi, but it works well for general advise.

Use the command line to image flash media

2 Packages

For me, I mostly use Debian with apt-get or synaptic. I get my system up to speed with the following commands as root or with sudo. Some of these install the default, so depending on the project, I might change that and install a different package version.

apt-get install curl emacs emacs-goodies-el filezilla gimp git keepass2 p7zip-full pelican synaptic vlc whois

2.1 Development

I often tend to not use this in my base system anymore:

apt-get install default-jdk php-cli php-sqlite3 sqlite3

2.2 Et Cetera

Some packages that I use sometimes, but not always in my systems:

apt-get install composer gnome-disk-utility pidgin-otr syslinux-util

2.3 Games

I used to consider myself a "gamer" but now I mostly just play this one:

apt-get install hedgewars

2.4 VPN and Remote Connections

For most of my work, I usually end up connecting to a remote system at some point. The following packages and command help take care of most situations.

apt-get install openconnect remmina

I usually don't need this one anymore, but for reference:

apt-get install network-manager-openconnect

Accessing the VPN just requires the location and the username.

sudo openconnect https://domain.tld/ -u USERNAME

3 Debian

In Debian, if running an appliance or console, I might do the following to add a sudo user or disable energy saver settings: autologin:

sudo adduser $USERNAME sudo
      
      xset s off
      xset -dpms
      
      emacs /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
      
      //uncomment the following to lines in [SeatDefaults]
      //and set the user
      #autologin-user=$USERNAME
      #autologin-user-timeout=0

3.1 Backports

https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

3.2 TODO LDAP

ldap-utils
      ldapsearch -H ldaps://LDAP.DOMAIN.TLD -x -LLL -b ou=SET-GROUP,dc=DOMAIN,dc=TLD givenName=NAME uid maillocaladdress

3.3 TODO BSD helper packages

signify-openbsd hashalot

3.4 TODO guix setup

https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Requirements.html

3.5 TODO qemu setup

qemu-system-x86_64 -drive format=raw,file=someSystemHere.iso -boot d -m 512