What distros do you install on your mom’s, sister’s, buddy’s, etc machines?
My go-to has usually been Mint, but I wonder if there is a better set and forget, easily understood distro to install on the computers of those who will rely on you for support.
atomic distros would probably be a good option, but it seems that same disk dual boot is a no no, and that can be a deal breaker.
I’m thinlink QoL, for me, that is.
400+ installs in the past four years - discarded/donated business laptops that get fixed, cleaned, upgraded with cheapest SSDs and donated to predominantly tech illiterate users.
99% is ubuntu lts + ansible playbook that removes snap, disables A TON of update naggings, installs flatpak, coupla apps and systemd timer to autoupdate all flatpaks. this is the only thing that has low support requests, everything else we tried (mint, debian, fedora) has a disproportionately higher support request frequency (reinstalls, wifi, fix this, remove that, etc).
I totally could adapt debian to be as good or even better (fedora with the bi-annual versions is right out), but one of the important caveats is the user being able to install it with minimum hassle if needed and that just would not be doable.
I’d urge everyone ITT to look at the thing through the user’s eyes and not get lost in “no true scottsman” fallacies. the goal is to convert a user over, not to demonstrate how cool you are. once they know what’s what, you can sell them on fedora and atomic and whatnot, but not as a first step.
I don’t use ubuntu, have it on none of my stuff, and wouldn’t go out with you if you do. but it’s presently the only option for beginners for use on laptops that has a semblance of a modern desktop OS.
I installed Zorin OS on two family laptops today. Hope it works out. They also run Ubuntu Cinnamon on another one and I was amazed to see a crusty 2005 laptop I’d last booted to install Debian on in 2018 start up for the first time in 7 years just fine. The thing just bloody worked, no drama.
zorin woulda been a solid contender if it weren’t for the crew involved and its murky path forward. but as a first, “see it ain’t that bad” step, sure.
I’m starting to learn Ansible for pretty much this exact purpose. I’ve got a bunch of bash scripts that do this but hoping to switch. Would you be willing to share those playbooks or at least some resources you used?
can’t give the thing out as-is, there’s a buncha stuff in there pertaining to our infra. restructuring and refactoring it (the thing doesn’t even use roles, just a gargantuan yml file with tasks) is long overdue and I thought your query would be the thing that pushes me over the line to finally do it, but after an hour with it I gave up it’s just too big of a mess.
I had the same path as you, was irritated that maintaining idempotency of the existing bash scripts was such a huge task, so started piece by piece, one task, test, add another, etc. mainly by following jeff geerling’s guides and then venturing out on my own by reading the official docs. tried utilizing bullshitgpt on a coupla occasions, but the thing constantly made up shit that doesn’t exist costing me time I ain’t got, so I gave up on it.
I figured that would be the case but also thought it was worth asking. I appreciate the effort and the info and I’ll try to start with good practices (like roles, didn’t know about those).