Laptop Rebuild

I am taking the OSCE course.  The first thing I did, besides saving major capital was to get some new hardware.  I built a new desktop and bought a new laptop.  I wanted to make my desktop a cheaper version of the computer here [http://pauldotcom.com/2010/10/your-password-cracking-system.html].  However, the desktop as of this moment needs to be redone.  I need a motherboard that can handle 4-way SLI with better video cards.  I want to use the desktop for password cracking using the GPUs' and SSD drives.  That is going to take some serious cash so it may take me a minute.  Moving on.  I got the ASUS G74SX RH71 laptop.  I grabbed another 4GB RAM stick and my 2 SSD hard drives from my older laptop.  I setup the usual dual-boot of Windows 7 and Backtrack 5 R1.  (And yes, I know Backtrack 5 R2 is officially going to be released in a few days.  I am sure I am going to have to do this whole process again.  Meh, I would have done it again anyway at some point).  Both installed were x64 bit since I wanted to use all of the RAM without any issues.  It worked out great in the long run. I was able to add addition programs to help with every work too. I was able to save my bookmarks and shortcuts from old Chrome and Firefox clients along with the usual addons. However, I did run into the usual problems that I found solutions for, for the most part anyway.

Added Apps:
VLC
Hexeditor
OpenOffice
Synaptic
UFW/GUFW
WireShark
KCalc
TouchPad Indicator
NoteCase
Compiz
Gimp
Evince
Tsclient
Xchat
Elinks
xscreensaver-gl
rss-glx

KeyPad issues:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao && sudo apt-get update   
sudo apt-get install touchpad-indicator

Gnome: waiting for audio system to respond
Go to System->Preferences -> Startup Applications
Make sure you’re in the tab ‘Startup programs’
-> Click on "Add"
Name: Pulseaudio daemon
Command:/usr/bin/pulseaudio
Comment: Start the sound daemon
Now logout, then login again.

System Beep:
In the terminal:
run 'alsamixer'
move to PC Beep
press m to mute
press escape

Disable ASUS touchpad:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install touchpad-indicator
******xinput needs to be installed.

VMware 7.1:
chmod +x VMware-*.bundle
./VMware-*.bundle

mkdir /tmp/vmware && cd /tmp/vmware
cp -R /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/ .
cd /tmp/vmware/source
for i in ./*.tar; do tar -xf $i; done
for i in ./*.tar; do mv $i $i.orginal; done
patch -t -f -p1 < /root/vmware2.6.39fixed.patch
tar cf vmblock.tar vmblock-only
tar cf vmci.tar vmci-only
tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
tar cf vsock.tar vsock-only
cp -vf *.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/

Give me CHROME!!:
Installing and running Google Chrome
Download chrome from http://google.com/chrome 
and then do:
dpkg -i ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
You may get a complaint about running this as root, so either create an account for browsing, or start the browser with the following command:
/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome %U --user-data-dir
**** I just added a shortcut with the parameters already set. 

FLASH:
wget http://samiux.volospin.com/flash/install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
tar xvfz install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins
mv -f libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

Credit Due:
Now, I did not create these instructions, I just kept a list for an easier rebuild when I needed it.  Here are all the links I have on trying to make the rebuild quick and painless.  If I did not list it, my apologies, I was not trying to go all Zuckerberg on people:

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?3220-Asus-G74SX-A1-Keypad-Problem/page6&s=5d5ad2019d4b8ffffaa73c10b18c66f3
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/backtrack-5-fixes/44739-fix-vmware-workstation-vmware-player-compiling-2-6-39-x-kernel.html
http://insidetrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/backtrack-5-r1-some-things-fixed-some.html
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43954
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/showthread.php?t=44739
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45100
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45314
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40271

I have not added these programs yet, but I still thought it was worth noting here, but I will update later if they are not working out too well.  I found these will searching for fuzzers and web application vulnerability hunters:

http://code.google.com/p/pyrats/
http://code.google.com/p/sprillis/
http://google-gruyere.appspot.com/


I cannot forget to add:
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade