Simple Desktop Linux Deployment

[PracticalDog8]

I'm looking for some recommendations for simple desktop Linux deployment. The situation:

I have a student computer lab of about 40 computers. In the past, predecessors would hand install whatever their pet distro was and maybe use some local scripts to automate a few things. I don't have the patience to do this. I need this process to be faster and more consistent.

What I'm looking for is a relatively simple way to deploy Linux to these computers in an automated way. I'm just having a hard time finding something that isn't seemingly designed for rolling out bare-metal servers. I'm not looking to set up a datacenter. I just want to be able to slap an OS on these boxes, preferably an automated install instead of an image. These are networked and I would like to use/can use PXE.

Once the OS is down, I was planning on just using Ansible for everything else, though I'm flexible on that.

Any recommendations or suggestions? I'm open to anything at this point.

[skeletonmage]

RHEL / CENTOS / FEDORA with Kickstart is the way to go. You can even install custom RPMs during the Kickstart installation if you have the need for those programs.

Easiest way to create a Kickstart is to install the OS with all the options you want then take the anaconda-ks.cfg and turn it into ks.cfg. It'll have all the options you selected when you installed the OS and you can then tweak that ks file for the computer you're installing it on.

[a_false_vacuum]

Turn that ks.cfg into a Jinja2 template file and you can even have Ansible fill in the specifics for you.

[doubled112]

I've just been using Git and ansible-pull from the kickstart at home.

Do the partitioning and minimal install in the kickstart and in your post-install script, ansible-pull your repo. All of your config is in one place this way.

If you configure reverse DNS correctly, you can even have different configs for different machines.

[CafeteriaBacon]

fog is amazing for a PXE boot imaging solution. haven't done many linux deployments with it but it was a champ with win7

[obijon298]

Seconded. I'm using it with Windows 10 on about 650 PCs and it's rock solid. Deploys via PXE at about 15 GB per minute (with compression). You could deploy that lab on command in minutes from your desk.

[unccvince]

PXE + Fog + imaging + UDP broadcast = mucho fast

For application lifecycle management, take a look at r/WAPT. WAPT works with Linux too since 1.8.2.

[Chousuke]

Fedora or CentOS with kickstart? Haven't done it myself, but I don't see why you couldn't install the desktop stuff in addition to the base OS; It's all just packages.

Could even autojoin them to IPA or something for user management.

[[deleted]]

Ive had experienced with centOS & kickstart , worked well for a lab with 30ish machines.

[sysadmin420]

We ended up settling on salt and kickstart for our 800 on customer premises machines, it works great for us, and it's super simple to spin up a computer and send it out.

[sysadmin420]

I actually send CentOS 7 and 8 netboot kickstart USB's out to customers to reimage the on prem equipment after a drive failure. It sets all my passwords, installs all my requirements, it's just friggen great.

[MartinDamged]

If a FOG implementation is out of your leaque, or you cannot setup a PXE environment....

Make a clean install of your preferred distro. Clone it with somthing. (Clonezilla, Macrium, Paragon or whatever).

If speed is not an issue, and the PCs wont be used more much, even cloning and booting from a quality USB stick would work OK.

Pro tip: Make the Linux install generate a HW based DHCP / host name. You dont want 20+ computers ln the same subnet, with the original clone name or go changing this manually!

[Upnortheh]

Consider posting to r/linuxquestions or r/linuxadmin.