Deploy one Linux Mint image to computers of different manufacturers?

[stem]

Hi,

I’m managing computers at a school. We have some old computers with Windows 7 from different manufacturers (let’s say 8 from manufacturer A and 4 from manufacturer B). I’m planning to put Linux Mint on them as there are no drivers for Windows 10 available.

I want to know in general if I can deploy the same Linux Mint image to all computers or should I create separate images for the different manufacturers?

Am I right that the hostnames are set automatically after deploying?

Yes, I have no practical experience with FOG server by now, as you can suspect after reading my questions.

Thank you alot.

stem

[Sebastian Roth]

@stem said:

I want to know in general if I can deploy the same Linux Mint image to all computers or should I create separate images for the different manufacturers?

Modern Linux distros like Mint usually have a wide spectrum of kernel drivers included and will boot different models. No promise that it will work but there is a good chance it does. From what you write I guess all the machines have legacy BIOS right? If you’d have latest new UEFI machines as well that would be an issue with just one image.

I am not sure if Mint does some fancy things like LVM partitioning, home partition encryption or similar stuff FOG cannot handle. Make sure you choose a simple plain partition layout when installing the master image machine and you should be fine.

Am I right that the hostnames are set automatically after deploying?

Hostname change on Linux machines can be done using postdeploy scripts or using DHCP/DNS client naming within the Linux OS. Both don’t work “automatically” out of the box. How did you get the impression that this should work just like that?

[george1421]

@Sebastian-Roth said in Deploy one Linux Mint image to computers of different manufacturers?:

I am not sure if Mint does some fancy things like LVM partitioning, home partition encryption or similar stuff FOG cannot handle. Make sure you choose a simple plain partition layout when installing the master image machine and you should be fine.

My daily driver (not in the office) is a Linux Mint system (ubuntu based). It just has standard partitions not lvm.

As Sebastian said, you can get near windows like deployments with most linux distros if you want to do it manually through post install scripts or via the FOG client. I can say I’ve never used the fog client as part of a FOG linux deployment.

One other comment, I have a how-to on netbooting your favorite distros to where you can live boot linux mint on hardware without installing it first for testing purposes here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/10944/using-fog-to-pxe-boot-into-your-favorite-installer-images