expoweb/handbook/computing/basiclaptop.html
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<title>CUCC Expedition Handbook: Basic expo laptop</title>
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<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expedition Handbook - Basic laptop</h2>
<h1>Setting up a basic Expo laptop</h1>
<h2 id="any">What you can do from any laptop</h2>
<p>There is a lot you can do without installing any software on your own machine. Using a browser, you can logon to the Expo online system ("the website", also known as "troggle") as user 'expo' at <a href="/accounts/login/">the Troggle User Login page</a>. (Ask another expoer for the 'cavey:beery' password.) You can:
<ul>
<li>Edit any HTML page in the online handbook: correct errors, update phone numbers
<li>Edit existing Survex files in our complete Loser cave data repository
<li>Create new Survex files - a template is provided - for new cave passages
<li>Edit the cave description and entrance description text for existing caves
<li>Create entirely new caves in the system by filling out online forms
</ul>
<p>Documentation on how to actually do these things are in the <a href="manual.html">data maintenance manual</a>.
<p>And using email to send the results to an expo nerd, you can:
<ul>
<li>Type up your logbook entry for any trip you do (surface or underground), but please use <a href="../logbooks.html">our standard format</a>
<li>Upload GPS tracks from your phone
<li>Send photos of cave entrances and cavers doing mad things
<li>Sketch rigging plans on paper, photograph them, and email them
<li>Regularly take photos of pages of '<a href="../bierbook.html">the bier book</a>' and 'the sesh book' and email them, to protect against accidental 'G&ouml;ssering'
<li>Regularly take photos of pages of '<a href="../logbooks.html">the handwritten expo logbook</a>', also to protect against accidental 'G&ouml;ssering' but also against permanent loss. We are missing several vital logbooks from past expos through carelessness.
</ul>
<p>and of course using your phone or laptop you can update entries on expo antics on public forums such as ukcaving.
<p>We are actively working on increasing the number of expo activities that can be done with just a browser and no installed software.
<h3>Which laptop do you need?</h3>
<p>If you have not actively used troggle since 2018, you are probably not aware of <a href="#any">all the things</a> you can now do with just a browser. Many of these capabilities are not new, but they weren't documented and had been forgotten over the past 10+ years. Now <a href="manual.html">these capabilities are documented</a>, though writing better documentation is an unending job.
<ul>
<li><a href="#any">Any laptop</a> with a broswer and email.
<li>An <a href="#basic">expo basic laptop</a>
<li>A <a href="winlaptop.html">Windows expo basic laptop</a>
<li>A full <a href="yourlaptop.html">expo data maintenance computer</a> and Android phone config
<li>An <a href="../troggle/troglaptop.html">expo software development computer</a> for troggle programming
</ul>
<p>See <a href="../troggle/trognotes.html#devtree">the expertise sequence</a> which lists what you can do at each stage.
<h2 id="basic">Your own basic laptop</h2>
<p>If you are new to expo and can't do what you want with just a browser and email, then please use the <em>expo laptop</em> in the potato hut first. You don't <em>need</em> to use your own laptop - which can take several hours to configure completely.
<p>To set up your own basic laptop for all cave data maintenance you need to do this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Register an SSH key</a> with an expo nerd i.e 'get a login'. (see "Key Configuration" below)</li>
<li>Install <a href="#software">git version control software</a> to download ("clone"), view and edit caving data.</li>
<li>Clone two <a href="../computing/repos.html">expo repositories</a> <var>loser</var> and <var>drawings</var> so you have the files on your machine. (Use the <a href="qstart-git.html">git reminder</a> for how to do this, e.g. <em>git clone ssh://expo@expo.survex.com:/home/expo/expoweb</em> [actually <var>loser</var> is still (Oct.2021) using mercurial not git, so this won't work.]</li>
<li>Install survex, and therion or tunnel for editing cave data.
<li>Install image editing software such as Irfanview or gimp.
<li>If you are also planning on extensive work rewriting parts of the handbook, then you will also need the <a href="../computing/repos.html">expo repository</a> <var>expoweb</var>.
</ol>
<p>The <em>expo laptop</em> is a basic laptop configuration. It has everything for editing and testing survey files (survex, aven, cavern), drawings (tunnel, therion), scanned images of sketches and centre-lines, and photographs. The <em>expo laptop</em> in the potato hut is also physically connected to a flatbed scanner but you can use your phone camera instead and email the images to yourself on your laptop.
<p>The <em>expo laptop</em> may also have some software for managing vector images (such as rigging guides), <a href="https://paperless.bheeb.ch/">PocketTopo</a> files, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system">GIS digital maps</a> and <a href="https://activityworkshop.net/software/gpsprune/development.html">GPS tracks</a>. See the <a href="yourlaptop.html">full data maintenance laptop configuration</a> for details.
<p>Managing large sets of photographs and scanned images, and managing several folders of these on your laptop and on <var>expofiles</var> on the server is finicky and time-consuming. Many programmers use rsync to help them with this, but if you have never used rsync, now is <em>not</em> the time to learn. Use filezilla and FTP. It is at this point that if you are using a Windows machine, you <em>really</em> need to <a href="winlaptop.html#problems">read about how expo uses hard and soft links and filenames on Windows</a>. If things get screwed up badly, it will need someone on a Linux machine to sort it out.
<p>Once you have got all this working, and if it doesn't do what you want or you don't understand how to use it,
look at the <a href="yourlaptop.html">full data maintenance laptop configuration</a> for everything else.
And please <b>write some documentation for the next person</b> in your situation.
<h3>Cheat lists and quick reminders</h3>
<ul>
<li>Quick <a href="qstart-git.html">reminders for using git</a> at the command line.
<li>Quick <a href="qstart-rsync.html">reminders for using rsync</a> at the command line.
</ul>
<h2 id="software">Software</h2>
<p>If you are just typing up logbook entries then you don't need any other software. If you are working with survey data download this software (short list):
<ul>
<li><a href="fzconfig.html">Filezilla</a> - ftp GUI software with a configuration file to get to the expo server</li>
<li><a href="https://git-scm.com/">git</a> - version control system</li>
<li><a href="getsurvex.html">Installing surveying software</a> - survex, tunnel, therion - specifically for expo use
<li><a href="https://survex.com/download.html">Survex</a>, including the Aven visualisation tool.
<li><a href="https://github.com/CaveSurveying/tunnelx">Tunnel</a>: 2.5D cave drawing program based on Survex-compatible data which can also read PocketTopo files. (Generally called 'tunnel' even though the project and executable is actually 'tunnelx'.)
<li><a href="https://therion.speleo.sk/">Therion</a> - Therion processes survey data and generates maps or 3D models of caves.
</ul>
<h2 id="configuration">Configuration</h2>
<p>Follow this link to <a href="keyexchange.html">register a key with the expo server</a> to get upload (i.e. read/write) access.
Do this first, Without it none of git, scp, ftp or rsync will work.
<p>On a Windows machine you will need to configure pageant (the putty authentication agent)
to <a href="https://blog.shvetsov.com/2010/03/making-pageant-automatically-load-keys.html">run at startup to load your key</a>.
Note that you are loading your <em>private</em> key, the .ppk file, into pageant and that this key never leaves your laptop.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="../putty/putty.html">Installing PuTTy</a>.</li>
<li><a href="winlaptop.html#hard">A Windows laptop for expo</a> - PuTTy and WSL here.</li>
</ul>
<p>When using Windows please, please be <a href="http://expo.survex.com/handbook/survey/getin.htm#filenames">excessively
careful when naming files and survex names</a> and be <a href="manual.html#quickstart">exceptionally careful when using rsync</a>.
<h3>Learning how to use this software</h3>
<ul>
<li>Using Survex, Tunnel and Therion, see the <a href="http://expo.survex.com/handbook/survey/">Expo Handbook - Surveying section</a>.
<li>For more detailed configuration, explanations and help see the <a href="yourlaptop.html#configuration">full laptop</a> instructions
</ul>
<h3>FTP</h3>
<p>It is necessary to use scp or sftp to manage large collections of files in 'expofiles'
See <a href="upload-expert.html">Experts: Uploading files</a>,
<a href="uploading.html">Uploading files</a> and <a href="gpxupload.html">Uploading GPS tracks</a>.
Only machines which have done the key-pair setup process can do scp, sftp or rsync.
</p>
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