Code without "messing up everything"?

I'm a coder (I'm on a mac) and I'm using a computer that is a computer that "shouldn't be messed with". I'd like to 开发者_如何学Goinstall some command-line programs but I want to somehow be able to erase everything I did.

I know, I shouldn't be doing any of that just-in-case something does happen.

But, I'd like to do all of my work and then have it automatically completely clean everything up when I'm finished.

I'm planning to code in php, java and maybe objective-c (Apple developer toolkit). I installed another OS (dual boot) and yeah. That didn't go over very well with the manager....

If it's fairly modern machine with decent amount of RAM, you could run a virtual machine with another OS in it. This way you're for all purposes sandboxed.

You can get a virtual machine and install the OS you want to code in in it. When you're down you can delete the OS first, then uninstall the virtual machine, then you can probably do a system restore to clean it off completely. I personally use VMWare. Its pretty easy to install a new OS in it and it has good networking features.

VMWare Link http://downloads.vmware.com/

You can check out some here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtual_machines

Has anyone just said "Live OS"?

Many applications can be installed on a USB stick, see portableapps.com. (Windows only.)

If that doesn't suit your needs, download a Ubuntu image, burn that on a CD and tell your target computer to boot from this CD. E voila, now you have a complete OS at your hand, that doesn't leave any trace on the target computer. (Make sure to save your data on a real hard drive or USB stick before shutting down the computer.)

On a Mac, since it's a Unix, you could install another OS X inside a chroot environment. However, I doubt, that it will suit your needs as to leave the original system untouched, since you seem to have to install lots of other stuff to get this running: http://www.algonet.se/~afb/mac/chroot.html (Google for OS X and chroot, perhaps there is a cleaner solution).

Finally you can use a virtual machine. Download VirtualBox, create a machine, use it, and the remove it and uninstall VirtualBox.

My best recommendation would be to use a Linux live CD and save your data onto a USB flash drive. Boot the live CD (if you can select the machine's boot device), do what you need to do, save your data, and shut down.

Some examples -- many more are out there...

• Fedora
• Knoppix (the "classic" liveCD distribution)
• Ubuntu

What's the purpose of this machine? Is it in a state that SHOULD NEVER BE CHANGED? Or does it get changed on a regular basis, just not by you?

If it doesn't get changed, and only provides services you could look at software like DeepFreeze. It's a program that my school used to use, it basically sets up an "Image" of the disc, and everytime the computer is reboot it restores that image.

http://www.faronics.com/ <-- I think this it the site, I can't visit it because my company's firewall blocks it... hmmm

I have a flash drive with utilities, including pathman.exe and a batch file that adds the utilities to the path. Unplug the flash, log out, and they're all gone. Note that this could leave traces, e.g. in the event log or antivirus logs, or be logged by any software that's monitoring activity.

Edit: Mac, huh? You could apply the same idea, utilities on a flash, script to put them in your path.