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’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?
I’m not looking for a date, but this made me curious. Would you elaborate?
I don’t use Ubuntu and wouldn’t go out with you if you do
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.
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.
It’s often a laptop, something us nerds wouldn’t buy generally speaking, so they tend to have hardware issues. So newer tends to be better. So plain old Fedora workstation with gnome. I pin their favorite programs to the dock, and show them the basics of the interface. I show them the software button and say they can install anything they want from there, and that they should do the updates that pop up from there.
Zero issues. Honestly does a better job than windows - things are more intuitive for the non tech savvy.
Edit: mint is pretty good too if it works. It’s one of those two systems.
Us nerds don’t buy laptops?
I interpreted it as a “non-nerd” laptop, like a lower end consumer model purchased at full price for example
Laptops like that tend to be more hit and miss on Linux than say a Thinkpad or Dell XPS
I installed OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on 2 friend’s pcs.
One of them has moved to an iMac now (apple fanboy, was going to do that anyway, no convincing possible) though he did like linux more than windows.
The other dual-booted for a while and finally “booted” windows off of his pc last month. He’s pretty happy with it, too.
