Hello there,

I have a computer lab at my disposal with many PCs powered with Windows 7 making a workgroup environment through a hub. The task in hand is to replace Windows 7 with Linux (probably Mint Cinnamon) from all the PCs. Plus, every installation is supposed to have a user account named Student and Eclipse IDE for C/C++ installed. I wonder if there is a way to automate the process, because, otherwise the job will be quite cumbersome.

Thanking you all in anticipation.

yes, there are ways to do that. For example ansible can do automated install/configure tasks.
But if the installations are [almost] identical you can install/prepare only one and clone the result onto all the other hosts.

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Probably not, without setting up some sort of internal server to host install images. You tell us nothing about your environment, how many systems, etc., so there isn't much to go on. Installing from a USB drive is pretty quick and easy, and would probably get you better results, unless all your hardware/systems are identical. And writing a script to add a user and install Eclipse shouldn't be too difficult either, and that can probably even be copied to the install stick after you create it.

Eclipse can be installed via online repositories...again, these things can be scripted:
https://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linu...x-mint-19.html

All that said, there are several tutorials you can find about how to use PXE booting (again, IF your hardware supports it), and do preconfigurations, etc., but unless you're talking about more than 100 machines, there isn't much point. You can make 10 USB drives and have 10 concurrent installs running, and knock the job out quickly, with less ongoing maintenance.

And you're right...this will be 'quite cumbersome', but since you've been here for eleven years now, you should already know the job of an administrator often IS 'cumbersome'.

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What's wrong with picking a distribution, staging an install on one system, and also staging how to set it up the way it should be, and then working on a process or script (up to a limit - part of that process may be manual, but so what), and then doing it for all, or enlisting helpers to do it for all as you oversee them?

I mean ... how many computers can a computer lab have? And also I'm expecting that either all of the systems are homogenous in type and configuration, or the variety of types and configuration are limited to 2 or 3 max.

Even if it's just you, sit down at one computer, install Linux, tune it, configure it the way you want, write all that down. Figure out what, if anything you can automate, and then work your way through the lab. Or ... consider taking out hard-drives, cloning that first one (you should anyways), copying said clone to every system, and then putting all the drives back in.

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If network booting is an option I'm a big fan of https://ltsp.org/ . I use it at home quite successfully for 6 machines. Without knowing the workload though I'm not sure how well it would work. Is easy for sure. Create one image and it does the rest. Only manage users on the main server.

As I recall it was originally designed with schools in mind. Not entirely sure how you could have them all use the same user at potentially the same time. However you could give each student their own login with zero trouble. Separate /home/"$USER" directories and everything. Dump them at the end of the semester or school year or whatever if you needed to.

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Distros that support kickstart ought to be able to do that. Boot them off pxe I'd think.

Otherwise make a golden computer then use clonezilla to broadcast it to lab.

Many other ways too.

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Check out 'PXE boot server', set up a server & have them all boot from it, then you only have to maintain that one server.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboo...on_Environment

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Yep...PXE booting was mentioned, but the caveat is that their hardware has to support it. If it's older hardware (they mention Windows 7 and a HUB), they may not have the option to network boot at all.

But given the OP said that this lab has the computers plugged into one hub, it's probably safe to assume not that many computers. Is it worth setting up network boot/kickstart for something like 20 computers?? How big is this lab likely to be?? Could install all of them in a few hours...and installation of Eclipse (a package) and addition of a single user certainly isn't arduous, and can easily be scripted. The OP was provided a link with Eclipse installation instructions previously.

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OP: are your machines all running exactly the same hardware so that cloning might serve? The answer to that question directly and deeply affects what answers will actually have value for your situation!

PS: I have used PXE to load Windows 7 (it was almost shiny new at the time) onto 20 lab machines at once. IT was a pain, but not nearly the pain of installing manually on 20 machines one at a time. Cloning might have gone faster, but causes UUID collisions and license problems that (with Windows) are better to avoid. Linux clones better than Windows. With Linux I would have no hesitation going either way.

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Clonezilla has it's own deployment ability.

Almost every computer made in the last 20 years has pxe. If not then get gpxe/ipxe but I think that is built into cloneZilla.

Make note of hardware. You may have to modify your image. Modify naming/make generic may be very important. Hardware type like mixing uefi and legacy may be a problem.

As noted before the time you take for this may exceed the value other than learning.

There is also a few ways to distribute desktop without loading to clients hard drives.

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mq15,

How many PCs in the lab?

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Thank you very much everybody here. In one way or the other, I found all your posts helpful.

I beg your pardon for not making timely response. It was due to some unavoidable situation.

Let me give you more background information:

The key motive for this query was learning i.e., to be able to do things smartly! Besides, the area I belong to, is suffering with shortage of electricity. Yes, shortage of electricity in this century. On its luckiest day, the lab gets electricity for one hour only.

The computer lab consists of 20 homogeneous desktop computers. There is no need of separate accounts for each student. Instead, only one general student account will suffice.

I place myself in intermediate level category of linux users. I am naive to all the suggestions provided here, except scripting. Yet I am ready to experiment. For scripting, I someday, heard about bash scripting. I know no more than this of scripting.

Now, I am pondering which method to start with.

I appreciate everyone's participation here.

Ok, so for 20 computers you'd be better off doing manual installations. You are only talking about installing a single package afterwards, and creating a single user account. You have to script nothing; put the installation image on a USB stick, boot the computers, and have it format disks and install. Log in, create a user account and follow the very simple steps noted in an early reply to install the Eclipse package.

That's my thinking, stage it once on one computer, write down the steps followed and then perform this on the remaining 19. Write future instructions for anybody needing to reconstruct.

We did the same thing with a bunch of lab development workstations, the person who set it all up, set it up once on one system, and they decided to make a clone of that install and used that to provision the others, sum total of about 15 systems. After that point, everybody then owned a system and customized as they saw fit. Any newly purchased systems used the original clone disk and started from that point. Slightly different arena, but we kept it simple.

Whooo! That is one UGLY desktop! It is busier than the Win10 desktop when It is cluttered! The details (what there are) do not even mention what kernel version it runs, if it has a package manager, or if there is a way to FIX THAT UGLY DESKTOP!


I take it you are looking for victims/volunteers to try it out?

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