Provisions

This repository is my digital toolbox, a personal note to me if I ever get a new device in order to make the shifting process as swift as possible. In order to separate the concerns between personal use and development, please do not use the same device for work and personal matters (my personal preference is Windows machines for personal use and Unix systems for software engineering). I will try to avoid programming in Windows for separation of concerns between my personal life and my development life. Windows machines are simple and I don't think the process could get any more straightforward than it is already. The provisioning process is done by using Shell script(s) for portability and ease of use.

Structure

The project is structured like the following:

• dotfiles contains my personal dotfiles for iTerm2, oh-my-zsh, vscode, and ordinary Terminal dotfiles.
• scripts contains useful scripts for performing the provisioning and the after-provisioning needs (setup, updates, and the like).

Notes

Some notes to keep in mind before provisioning your device:

• Make sure you get a PC with Intel processors. Homebrew (for Linux) does not support ARM processors. Please use either MacOS or the Debian family.
• I am a 'minimalist' developer. I don't really have any personal configurations other than the synchronized one in Visual Studio Code and my simple dotfiles.
• We keep everything simple in local machine, and we can use Docker if we need more complicated tools (databases, caches, etcetera).
• The provisioning process is kept sane, that is, no files/lines will be changed if they already exist.
• Several zsh themes are available through oh-my-zsh.

Preparations

Before starting to automatically configure stuff, we have to configure our machine manually first.

For Windows:

• Take care of Windows Updates and Drivers first to prevent any unwanted happenings.
• Log in to Microsoft Account, link it to the device, setup synchronizations (settings, accounts).
• Install Chrome, Drive, and essential applications. This should not be the main development machine if possible.

For MacOS:

• Take care of Apple Updates.
• Log in to iCloud. Setup synchronizations and settings.

For Ubuntu/Linux:

• Update software using sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade.
• Install build-essential and zsh and set it to as the default Shell: sudo apt install build-essential zsh and chsh -s $(which zsh).

Setup

• Initially, we have to start by installing git on Debian or xcode-select on MacOS:

# Debian
sudo apt install git

# MacOS
xcode-select --install

• Clone this repository in your home directory.

cd $HOME
git clone https://github.com/lauslim12/provisions.git

• Run this script, and delete the folder once you're done. You're going to use provisions in $HOME/Projects/provisions for the next parts.

cd provisions && make setup
cd .. && rm -rf provisions

• You're done! All that's left to do is doing manual configurations.

Manual Configurations

After you have configured everything in your system, it's time to do some manual works (recommended to be in order):

Configure Google Chrome:

• Install Google Chrome as a web browser.
• Log in to all of Google Accounts and all webservices that I use.
• Setup Google Synchronization (Contacts, Drive, Calendar, and more).
• Change Privacy and Security to Public DNS.

Configure Git:

• Setup GitHub's username: git config --global user.name <MY_GITHUB_NAME>.
• Setup GitHub's email: git config --global user.email <MY_GITHUB_EMAIL>.
• Generate SSH key for GitHub, add it to your GitHub account, and test your connection, don't remember to verify the RSA fingerprint (ssh -T git@github.com).

Configure MacOS:

• Finder -> Preferences -> Show Home Folder in Sidebar & Show Mac.
• System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources -> Add Japanese - Romaji.
• System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Input Sources -> Check both.
• System Preferences -> Night Shift -> Schedule night light.
• Tidy up dock and desktop icons.

Configure iTerm2:

• iTerm2 -> Preferences -> Profiles -> Other Actions -> Import JSON Profiles.
• iTerm2 -> Preferences -> Profiles -> Other Actions -> Set as Default.
• iTerm2 -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Status Bar Location -> Bottom.

Configure Windows:

• Settings -> Taskbar -> Automatically Hide Taskbar in Desktop.
• Settings -> Night Light - Configure Night Light.
• Settings -> Region and Language -> Add Language -> Add Japanese.
• Tidy up taskbar and desktop icons.
• If using WSL, install Windows Terminal for better terminal experience.

Configure Visual Studio Code:

• Log in to Microsoft Account inside Visual Studio Code to sync all of my extensions and settings.
• My settings and extensions can be found in dotfiles/vscode.

Scripts

With the help of Makefile, several commands have been made to act as shortcuts to ease up the provisioning and update process. Make sure you are in the provisions folder before using these commands.

• make setup: to setup/provision your whole device.
• make setup-work: to setup/provision device for professional usage.
• make update: to update all software packages (brew, apt, npm, and things like it with sane defaults).

Next Steps

• Download all of essential data that might still be used from Google Drive. Keep data backed up and updated!
• Fetch all currently being worked on projects from GitHub. Just a simple git clone will suffice.
• Once a week, please update all dependencies by using the available commands.
• Don't forget to check for updates for your system at all times.
• Check the repository once in a while to update the commands and links (should be highly unlikely).