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.
They get Windows because I’m not being paid to support their setup
I don’t either, but there are many in my family and friends I will gladly support.
Whatever OS they want or need, be it Ubuntu or Mint or whatever, or even Windows for that matter; it ain’t my system so it ain’t my decision at the end of the day.
I could recommend things, but whatever OS I install on that system is ultimately up to the person I’m hypothetically building it for.
Granted I’m speaking in terms of that person being a client in a business relationship more than a casual ‘I’m getting sick of Windows, what should I run instead’ setting-it-up-for-a-friend scenario, but still.
NixOS, this is probably THE BEST use case for it.
I sneak into my sysadmin’s office and install arch over his slackware install whenever he is out on PTO. I don’t think he knows yet who is doing it, but I am sure he secretly enjoys yelling at us while reinstalling.
Since I’m doing all the admin stuff anyways, I went with EndeavourOS. Arch, but on easy mode. I’ve even got my sister in the habit of updating regularly!
I had some good rate of satisfaction (anecdotal empirical and personal) with Silverblue. Good support for UKI + Secure Boot + TPM2 + SELinux. All of that transparent to end user, and we can roll back stuff quite easy with the Atomic philosophy.
Those were experiments conducted on Lenovo and Dell laptops that have good Linux support with continuous firmware updates via fwupd.
Personally, I use Arch, btw. Not a big fan on the relation of companies with distros.
You know i always keep that thang (a ventoy thumb drive with Manjaro w/ Xfce, KDE plasma, and Gnome) on me. I find that DE is what matters most to new linux convertees, since its so visible. I also like the add/remove software with gui; command line stuff is eventually gonna come up, but letting them have something to look at is critical to start.
If they are coming from Windows: Kinoite
If they are coming from Macintosh: Silverblue
WIndows 7
Linux mint. the go to linux distribution for recovering windows users.
U mean converting?
Mint.
Linux users tend to forget that using Konsole even once is overwhelming for even “seasoned PC users”
My roommate is a gamer, spends lots of time on PC´s and knows his shit. But he felt overwhelmed with the CachyOS Laptop i gifted him.
fedora cinnamon. it doesn’t have the issues with suspending that ubuntu and it’s derivatives have, and it’s easy to use and stable after the initial setup
Fedora
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.
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).
Manjaro. It’s really the most hassle-free distro that doesn’t have ancient software or risk breakage at every major version upgrade.
I know most of you can’t think for yourselves and let strangers on the internet do it for you, so I fully expect replies telling me why this is wrong.
I know you can’t help yourselves.
Manjaro sometimes breaks AUR packages because it slightly laggs behind Arch and depedencies aren’t met. But I’ve been using it for years regardless and I really like it!
