I recently bought a new computer and wanted to use Ansible to install all the software. I have installed the base debian system and now wanted to install everything I regularly use with Ansible.

Here is the link to the repo

github.com/allotmentandy/ansible-debian-install-desktop

Inspired by the following repos on github, I wanted to install as much as possible with Ansible, including settings for software, the XFCE panels and copy over the files I want as a backup.

https://github.com/liquuid/ansible-desktop-debian

https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook

https://github.com/alecigne/ansible-desktop

I have used installed a lot of software but the core apps I wanted is as follows:

• Sublime Text
• Sublime Merge
• Google Chrome
• VS Code
• Brave Browser
• php7.4
• php8.0
• Apache2
• MySQL / MariaDB Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.5.12-MariaDB,
• Virtual Box
• Terraform
• Ansible
• Docker
• nodejs version 14.9
• npm
• Terminology
• Firefox
• Thunderbird

a number of extra repositories for software was required and features in the roles within the repository.

To run the ansible playbook run this command and enter the ssh password and the root password like so:

ansible-playbook -i hosts workstation.yml --ask-become-pass --ask-pass 

SSH password:
BECOME password[defaults to SSH password]:

One of the issues was that I tend to use su instead of the default sudo, and this requires become_method: su which is set in the ansible_cfg file

I will extend this as I need to, and update the blog and the repo. Hope it is of some help. If you have any feedback, issues or suggestions, please contact me.

If you would like to contact me with this form on londinium.com, ilminster.net or via Twitter @andylondon