Make Windows like Linux

I'm back to a job that only allows Windows on our laptops and desktops. Here's how I configured my workstation to be more Linux-like in order to increase my productivity:

• Install Google Chrome and Firefox
• Install an antivirus or security suite (Norton or Mcafee?); a free one is Avast
• Map my caps lock key to control; if Admin access is not available, then use AutoHotKey by creating caps_to_control.ahk with Capslock::Control, compiling it as an executable, and creating a shortcut in the Startup folder
• Download Cygwin and install the following: xinit (X server), python (2 and 3), gcc-*, openssh, screen, rsync, python-setuptools (easy_install)), git, subversion, xwinclipboard, procps (top command + others), aspell (I use flyspell in emacs), aspell-en, make, zip, unzip, patch, wget, perl, perl-dbi, libcrypt-devel (for perl DBD:ODBC), automake, autoconf, ghostscript, email (modify /etc/email/email.conf and enter correct server and credential information; sendmail is not needed for sending outbound emails, only needed to send internal emails)
• Install the emacs binaries to C:\Documents and Settings\my_username\bin\emacs-ver_num (Windows XP) or C:\Users\my_username\bin\emacs-ver-num (Windows 7+) and copy relevant image library dll files into the emacs bin directory in order for doc-view to work properly (eg, need libpng14-14.dll for emacs 24.3; Ghostscript (gs) is needed so install that via Cygwin)
  • See Vincent Goulet's emacs distro to see the list of dll files are needed (different versions of emacs uses different versions of the libraries, so use the latest version of emacs and match up the files listed on Vincent's site)
  • One could also use emacs w32 provided by cygwin, but ESS doesn't seem to work because that version of emacs does not have the function w32-short-file-name compiled with it as needed by ESS; tentative solution can be found here, but it's probably better to use the compiled emacs binaries available on GNU
• Set the HOME environment variable to C:\Documents and Settings\my_username (Windows XP) or C:\Users\my_username (Windows 7+); set LC_ALL and LANG to en_US.utf-8 (for perl dbi error); set CYGWIN=nodosfilewarning
  • Within a Cygwin Terminal, create a soft link from $HOME/.ssh path to /home/username/.ssh (ssh in Cygwin uses the keys from this location)
• Edit environment variables by running the following in the command prompt: rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables. Add the following to the PATH environment variable: path_to_R;path_to_JRE;C:\Documents and Settings\my_username\My Documents\bin;C:\Documents and Settings\my_username\My Documents\bin\emacs-24.3\bin;C:\cygwin\bin
  • If Admin rights are not available, then modify the user's environment variables instead (eg, PATH to be path1;path2;%PATH%)
  • If the settings aren't saved for future sessions (eg, in Citrix), then create a symbolic link from /home/user_id to the desired home (eg, C:/Users/user_id), and add the following to ~/.bashrc: export PATH=/cygdrive/f/R/R-3.1.1/bin/x64:/cygdrive/f/bin/emacs-24.3/bin:/cygdrive/f/bin:/cygdrive/f/bin/cygwin64/bin:$PATH and export JAVA_HOME=F:/bin/jre7.
• Add the following to ~/.bash_profile: . ~/.bashrc
• Add "export DISPLAY=:0.0" to ~/.bashrc
• On Windows XP, fix the carriage return issue by adding the following to the beginning of ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile: (set -o igncr) 2>/dev/null && set -o igncr; # this comment is needed
• Run touch ~/.startxwinrc to prevent xterm from launching whenever X server is started.
  • For recent version of Cygwin, run echo "exec sleep infinity" > ~/.startxwinrc and chmod +x ~/.startxwinrc
• Copy XWin Server shortcut from the Cygwin folder in the Start Menu to the Startup folder to start the X Windows Server at startup
• Install CutePDF Writer (also download and install Ghostscript from CutePDF) for printing to PDF files
• Install R using the Windows installer (works with Emacs ESS)
  • Install Microsoft R Open (optimized R) instead of CRAN R
  • Install RStudio
• Install Anacondas (Python that is optimized; includes my usual data/analytics stack)
  • Add the 3 Anacondas binary locations to PATH; need this for emacs' elpy to work
  • emacs elpy dependency: pip install rope jedi flake8 importmagic autopep8 yapf
• Get tramp in emacs to work properly in order to visit remote servers easily in emacs by first getting the latest copy of tramp, then configure and byte-compile the code (make) per the proper installation.
  • Add plink, pageant, and all putty-related binaries into the PATH (~/bin).
  • After creating an ssh key, use the putty kegen to convert id_rsa to id_rsa.ppk. Create a shortcut at startup that launches pageant /path/to/id_rsa.ppk. Then in emacs, one could access remote files using tramp via plink: /plink:username@host:/path/to/dir.
• Get sshfs to work on Windows to mount my servers
• Install Dropbox and symlink my .bashrc and .screenrc files
• Python packages: numpy, pandas, csvkit (easy_install works but pip install does not), jedi, epc, pyodbc, mysqldb, pymssql, psycopg; ddlgenerator (Python 3).
• R packages: RODBC, RMySQL, RPostgreSQL, ggplot2, plyr, glmnet
• Perl packages (for edbi in emacs): cpan RPC::EPC::Service, cpan YAML, cpan -i DBD::ODBC (gcc4 error; edit Makefile and change "CC=gcc4" to "gcc"; "LD=g++")
• Set up ssh server via Cygwin and open up port 22 in Windows Firewall; freeSSHd is also an alternative
• On Windows 8, the user might not be able to change group permissions (eg, can't ssh using keys because the key is "too open"); fix by changing files/directories group to 'User'
• Use Autopatcher to install download all necessary updates and install them all at once
• Have the following shortcut in the startup folder in order to have a a terminal open up at startup with screen initiated: C:\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe -e screen -s bash; in the shortcut, specify the home directory as the 'Start In' path
• Install UniKey for typing in Vietnamese (place in ~/Documents/bin), 7-Zip for handling archive files, and Virtual CloneDrive for handling disk image files
• Install Java Runtime Environment (JRE); if admin privileges aren't available, then extract the files manually into ~/Documents/bin/jre/
• Other tools per Lifehacker: VLC, PDF-XChange, Foxit PDF Viewer
• Configure sshd using openssh, make sure it starts at startup (Start > Run > Services; look for CYGWIN sshd), and allow /usr/sbin/sshd to pass through the Firewall; one could alternatively use freeSSHd
• Bash shell in emacs via shell: add (setq shell-file-name "bash")

and (setq explicit-shell-file-name shell-file-name) to the emacs init file, and add the following to ~/.bashrc:

# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9670209/cygwin-bash-does-not-display-correctly-in-emacs-shell
if [ "$EMACS" == "t" -a "$OSTYPE" == "cygwin" ]; then
    PS1='\u@\h \w\n$ '
fi

If Dropbox cannot be installed then symlink my ~/.emacs.d directory (need to use mklink in order for symlink to work properly).

If the computer is a dual-boot with Linux installed first, then one can change the order of the bootloader to Windows by following these instructions.

This is a good post to review.