Improve setup parity between distro-specific setup-system scripts

[kergoth]

Improve setup parity between distro-specific setup-system scripts

Problem

The scripts/setup-system-*.tmpl scripts have significant inconsistency in what they configure:

Chimera (~111 lines):

• Full system config: shell, locales, services (syslog, dhcp, bluetooth)
• Desktop environment (GNOME, flatpak)
• Development tools (clang, cmake, cargo, go)
• Containers (podman)
• CLI tools (wget, tmux, uv, jq, fzf, ripgrep, fd, eza, bat, delta, gh, jj, restic, etc.)

Arch (~80 lines):

• System config: locales, timezone, staff group, keyring
• SSH/mDNS setup
• Basic packages (vi, zsh, which, xz, wget, unzip)
• Console font (bare-metal only)

Debian/Ubuntu (~25 lines):

• Only: xz-utils, zsh

Fedora (~23 lines):

• Only: xz, zsh, neovim

Expected Behavior

All distros should provide comparable base functionality:

• System configuration (locales, timezone, groups)
• Shell setup (zsh)
• Essential tools (vi/neovim, xz, wget, unzip)
• SSH configuration (where applicable)
• Platform-specific adjustments (WSL vs bare-metal)

Optional features should be consistently handled via flags (.coding, .containers, .headless).

Tentative Plan

1. Document what each script currently does
2. Define a "base set" of functionality all distros should provide
3. Standardize conditional logic (WSL, ephemeral, coding, containers, headless)
4. Update minimal scripts (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora) to match Arch/Chimera patterns
5. Consider extracting common setup into setup-system-linux.tmpl where possible

Related

• Arch improvements in Update arch setup, particularly for WSL #26 could serve as a template for other distros
• Chimera setup demonstrates comprehensive capability coverage and good script structure (os-install/setup-root separation)

[kergoth]

Note: The CLI tools mentioned in chimera are a special case, as that platform doesn't support nix. Most of those are already installed via nix on other platforms.