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.
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 Framework
Yes, like this ;)
No no - not like that. Like crappy overpriced laptops. Like “I’m a piece of crap laptop masquerading as a good one and sold to people who don’t know better at a price way way way too high”.
Of course we have laptops :)
Indeed, wild statement if I ever heard one
👆
None… I tried with my Dad and even add some cool tools in additions (youtube dlp frontend). 2 days later he just reinstalled Windows on top because: “My USB audio dongle didn’t worked”.
Guess what? I didn’t either on Windows and was an external peripheral issue, not an OS/driver issue.
But he also said:" Too complicated for me" 🤦♂️
Linux mint debian edition.
I would go with Aurora or Fedora Kinoite. Atomic + KDE is unbreakable and easy for Windows casuals.
The only thing I dislike about Aurora is the illustrations baked into the distro. SDDM & Bazaar have them and can’t be changed. But it’s a freaking awesome distro.
I use it daily on my work laptop through an external USBC M2 NVME caddy. Today I had to move to a new work laptop and I just plugged it to the new one and that was it, my OS and all my stuff on my new work laptop in just a few seconds. No downtime. No drivers to update. Nothing.
The laptops have their factory Windows untouched. No warranty is void. IT is happy and I get to use Linux at work.
Plus, I can plug the drive to my home desktop PC running Bazzite and open files as if it was a regular thumbdrive.
This setup makes me so happy.
Mint is a very good option for this purpose. In my case, it’s Debian, but with a much more involved process.
The only ones who ask me to help with installing Linux are either very close friends or people in my family with whom I spend more time, and they tend to be curious about the exact setup that I’m using. I just so happen to have a fully-configured system image in a VM that I duplicate onto my machines, so I work with my friend or family to figure out what they need and how they want it to look, then I clone that VM, customize it to taste, and let them try it out. If they like it, I image it to their machine, make sure it’s bootable, work out any machine-specific issues, set a new password and encryption key, and make sure that
unattended-upgradesis working.Everyone else just asks me to help install Windows. I have a penchant for LTSC, with an obligatory trick up my sleeve.
Elementary on my wife’s, the rest of the family manages mostly. Outside family I now go to great lengths to avoid it. I just help them find the right distro and guides.
Otherwise some will see you as 1st 2nd and 3rd line support as well as hardware engineer from installation onward. Kind of the same as in the past when tv’s could be repaired. If they know you can do it, your done for. You have not stated working hours nor tariffs. And why pay for parts? You probably have boxes full of all kinds of stuff. (Including a demand to come over and fix stuff on xmas eve at 22:00)
I know, it sounds bitter, I’m not. Or …well over this point maybe a bit, I enjoyed helping out until too many saw it as a right and not a favour.
Mint or Fedora would be my first choices. I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for my own computers but I think those others are better for people new to Linux. In my experience Fedora does a good job of combining up-to-dateness and stability. Mint is less up to date, but close enough to Ubuntu and Debian that loads of the help materials out there will apply to it.
Ubuntu though I am less liking the snap dependence. I would avoid atomic distros for now. They are just the latest fad. Not saying bad though.
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 for my hypothetical client to look into on their own at a later date, but whatever OS I install on that system is ultimately up to the person I’m hypothetically building it for, I can’t just randomly install something without the client’s permission, assuming I’m getting paid to build them a PC in this hypothetical.
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.
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.
Bazzite. It’s immutable so you don’t need to even set anything up or configure things or go into the command line if you’re just doing regular computer things (web browsing, gaming, etc). Best experience on Linux I’ve ever had in 15 years.
For somethings, it makes it harder to install so being immutable sometimes adds an extra hurdle. But for the type of people who wouldn’t install the OS themselves, they aren’t going to try those methods anyways and if they did, they wouldn’t know enough to not break things. So this is what I was thinking.
OTOH, it makes it harder to get find answers since its less popular than the parent OS’s and fedora instructions often don’t apply, so if they ever do get interested in learning more it could be a hurdle. But they’re just gonna ask me to deal with it, and I’m currently using bazzite (+ windows dual-boot for work stuff).
You’re grossly overestimating the amount of people who want to explore around with distros and advanced stuff. The overwhelming majority of every computer user wants to browse the internet, play games, and store their files. For the average person, one can install an immutable distro (for them) and leave them to use their computer.
Yeahh java is a pain in the ass to get setup on bazzite without breaking stuff when you have an os update. I spun a fedora vm up and just installed it there but I need to redo that because the program I need java for is on my main os and I can’t move the license without javing java installed on the main os…
How did you install it?
BTW, for these kinds of things toolbox is usually a good choiceOn the fedira ws vm, I just layered it because its easy. I tried running openjdk in distrobox on bazzite but I didn’t have time to screw around with getting the program (Tunerstudio MS) that is already on my bazzite install to “find” the java in distrobox. I’m also REALLY new to distrobox so I was probably using it wrong. I’ll checkout toolbox later today.
Oh it’s pretty much the same thing but IMO actually a little worse, so if you didn’t have luck with distrobox it’s either a limitation or a misconfiguration somewhere
Edit: what the heck is a MegaSquirt with a dedicated forum on msextra.com?? Lmao
Don’t worry it’s engine nerd shit, no one there is having any sex.
Haha, I mean if you can get a megasquirt you’re obviously doing something very right, maybe too right
I don’t see much love for Debian Stable + KDE in this thread, but that’s what I installed for my wife and she absolutely loves it. Don’t underestimate the power of a “boring” but rock solid foundation specifically designed not to break. Users new to Linux migrating away from Windows often really appreciate that.
Well you’ve given my answer for most scenarios these days.
I did do a bazzite setup for my BIL recently, but thats an edge case. Debian + KDE is what I run mostly too, so its not much of a surprise I’d use it for others either.
That sounds like a great combo
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?
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).
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.
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
Is this public?
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.
My mother-in-law has been using mint for close to ten years.
Linux mint. the go to linux distribution for recovering windows users.
U mean converting?
sure lmao
I use Kubuntu for that. Works good, is reliable, and uses Plasma instead of Gnome. The KDE Plasma environment is way easier to “get” for people coming from Windows than Gnome.
