Getting started

Before you do anything the best thing to do is clone a fork of this repository.

Please note that running this project is destructive, it will overwrite configuration and install applications, potentially different versions than the ones you already have. Therefore it is recommended to run this against a fresh install of a Debian-based Linux. I am using Ubuntu Bionic.

Once you have your own forked copy cloned the first place you want to take a look at is setup.yml, this contains a list of ansible tasks. When you run ansible each of the included tasks is run.

I would suggest you start by commenting out all but the base task and running ansible with:

ansible-playbook -K setup.yml

Take a look at tasks/base.yml and you will see the basic pattern for a task. Each item in the file starts with a name and then uses one of the core ansible modules to perform some work, such as installing a package or copying a configuration file.

All configuration files are templates and can use variables set within vars.yml and the task yaml file itself.

The ansible apt module lets you install packages using apt-get:

- name: Install ectkeeper
  apt: name=etckeeper state=installed

This is how most software is installed.

Examples

Install a deb package from a URL.

Sometimes a package is not available in the standard Ubuntu repositories and there is no PPA either.

- name: install Git Kraken
  sudo: true
  apt: deb=https://release.gitkraken.com/linux/gitkraken-amd64.deb state=installed

Install a binary directly from a URL

Often there is no deb package and a single binary is download from a URL.

- name: Install selecta
  sudo: false
  get_url: url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/garybernhardt/selecta/master/selecta dest=/home/{{user}}/bin/selecta mode=u+x

(note ~/bin is in the $PATH)

Install multiple packages

- name: Install latest chromium package with codecs
  apt: pkg="{{ item }}" state=present force=yes
  with_items:
    - chromium-browser
    - chromium-browser-l10n
    - chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

Install package from a third party PPA

---
- name: Add Yubikey PPA
  apt_repository: repo=ppa:yubico/stable
  sudo: true

- name: Install Yubikey
  apt: name=yunikey-neo-manager

or

- name: Add skype-wrapper repository
  apt_repository: repo="deb http://archive.canonical.com/ xenial partner"
  sudo: true

Copy a configuration file

- name: Copy .tmux.conf
  sudo: false
  template: src=templates/tmux.conf dest=~/.tmux.conf

If you change any configuration files don't forget to copy those changes back to this project and commit and push. I usually make changes to the real configuration files, say ~/.zshrc, and once I'm happy I can cp ~/.zshrc ~/dev/ansible-desktop/templates/zshrc, commit and push.

Run a command

- name: Launcher minimise on click
  sudo: false
  command: "gsettings set org.compiz.unityshell:/org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/unityshell/ launcher-minimize-window true"

Conditionals

Most of ansible modules will be a no-op if the action has already been performed, for example the apt module will only install an application if it is not already in the desired state, e.g. state=installed.

There are times when you want to run a command only after another action was performed. Any action can register itself under a name, other actions can then use when to determine if the action was run.

- name: Install NeoVIM
  apt: name=...
  register: neovim_configuration_installed

- name: Install NeoVIM plugins
  sudo: false
  command: nvim -c "PlugInstall | qa!"
  when: neovim_configuration_installed.changed

For a more complicated example where we download, untar and compile see the ruby-install.yml task.