Is there a more elegant way to manage a mix of linux mint and ubuntu servers using ansible?

Question

I want to run similar commands on Linux mint and Ubuntu but they have small differences. I found a solution but it makes me rewrite each task twice. Is there a better way to do that?

- name: install the latest version of Ansible
            block:
                    - name: Add Ansible PPA (Ubuntu)
                      ansible.builtin.apt_repository:
                              repo: ppa:ansible/ansible
                      become: true
                      when: ansible_facts['distribution'] == 'Ubuntu'

                    - name: Add Ansible PPA (Linux Mint)
                      ansible.builtin.apt_repository:
                              repo: ppa:ansible/ansible
                              codename: focal
                      become: true
                      when: ansible_facts['distribution'] == 'Linux Mint' and ansible_distribution_release == 'una'

                    - name: install Ansible and dependency
                      apt:
                              name:
                                      - software-properties-common
                                      - ansible
                              state: latest
                              update_cache: yes
                      become: true

Answer 1

you could do something like this:

- name: install the latest version of Ansible
    block:
      - name: Add Ansible PPA (Linux Mint or Ubuntu)
        ansible.builtin.apt_repository:
                repo: ppa:ansible/ansible
                codename: "{{ '' if ansible_facts['distribution'] == 'Ubuntu' else 'focal' }}"
        become: true


      - name: install Ansible and dependency
        apt:
                name:
                        - software-properties-common
                        - ansible
                state: latest
                update_cache: yes
        become: true

when codename is empty, it takes automatically the name of distribution

Answer 2

One way to do this is to use the omit filter. See the documentation. This can be used to make the codename parameter optional when running the apt_repository module.

Example:

- name: set distro codename when OS is Linux Mint
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    distro_codename: focal
  when: ansible_facts['distribution'] == 'Linux Mint' and ansible_distribution_release == 'una'

- name: Add Ansible PPA
  ansible.builtin.apt_repository:
    repo: "ppa:ansible/ansible"
    codename: "{{ distro_codename | default(omit) }}"

This will ensure that the codename is used while creating APT repository if it is set (for Linux Mint in this case). Otherwise it will be omitted.