I’ve started to collect good computers that are stuck on Windows 10 that are being discarded. I want to put Linux on them and give them away to less fortunate people in need of a computer. It would be easier if user names and passwords were not part of the install process but part of the first boot after installation. What distros should I look at?
What you want is an OEM install. Ubuntu and mint have them. Note sure what others do.
Fedora too, if the users are tech illiterate and they come from Windows it might be worth going for the Kinoite spin. They wouldn’t be able to wreck it and the UI would feel more familiar to them.
besides these–which i occasionally use the oem option with… i just put endless on one here, it also sets up the initial user during the first boot after install.
the oem install option that is available with ubuntu and some ubuntu-based ones lets you do some initial extra package installs and stuff, though. you run a command linked on the oeminstall desktop when you’re finished with your ‘preinstall’.
It’s called “OEM install”.
Ubuntu based distros should have it.
Some Fedora variants do that too. Not sure which ones.
GNOME for one
ElementaryOS does it this way
Debian (and I suppose a lot of derivatives) can use preseeding. That gives you pretty much full control to the whole installer where you can just start the installer and it does everything for you, including users, partitioning, installed software and so on.
So like Arch Linux but for Debian
Maybe Fedora?
What is typically done, e.g. buying a PinePhone with PostMarketOS or refurbished setup deGoogled Murena phone, is having a default user with a well known password, e.g. 123456. AFAIR when you setup Rasbian you do have an interface to have a default user with a password.
I personally made an ISO of a configured distribution, see https://fabien.benetou.fr/Cookbook/Electronics#SocialWebXRRPi0 and that worked quite well for my use case.
Dude, this is like asking “Which car manufacturer ships new cars with mirros folded?” Every driver ought to know that it’s only a matter of pressing the button and they fold. Disqualifying all those good manufacturers because they don’t fold their mirrors before shipping sounds stupid.
Same here on this topic, it’s only a matter of running one command to create the user. Options include writing the instructions down on a piece of paper before giving the computer away, or close the little gap between post-installation and setting up users by yourself.
I think they want to give away computers without user accounts already created, that’s all.
Maybe Adélie but it only uses MUSL instead of glibc and is currently in beta
You can try NixOS, there you can declaratively create users even set their passwords by providing the hash of their pass in the config file. It can also set the config of all your apps and have different sets of apps installed and configured depending on certain conditions.
Sorry, Nixos is great, but you qlearly didn’t read the requirements.
Yes, sorry, my bad. Plus that’s not really beginner friendly distro
I’d argue that it’s not even a veteran-friendly distro, given the steep learning curve. 😅
still love it, tho. ❄️❤️
I forget which distro now, but I installed one that on first boot cones to a welcome screen for adding a user. Install just got the OS ready to deploy. It was a bigger distro, but I forget
