by I'm working on a curious project which involves devising a means by which
to keep miscellaneous software (GNU, and etc.) installed and updated on
the multiple platforms we have (SCO, AIX, RS/6000... but mostly SCO).
My first thought was to create a program which would allow the user to
select which software to install and such... then I realized that this
would be far more complex than I wanted it to be; and it would involve
the individual users needing to work with root privs (which I am
discouraging because of many problems we have had).
Most of our machines standarly NFS mount /remote/news and /remote/archive.
The installed files and such would be kept in /remote/archive/*.* so that
wouldn't be a problem...
Then it was suggested that I look into using something like "rdist"... which
seems a bit complex; and then you have the issue of multi-platforms (which
really isn't a major issue here).
I finally thought that it would be best if the updates and installations
were controlled by the admin (me) for sanity and consistency. Not all
users will have the same desires, ie: not everyone will want things like
TeX and not everyone will have the space for a lot of stuff. So I must
devise a way to determine this.
Before I go further, I figured I would bounce this off the net and see
what experiences and suggestions other people might have with this
situation. I would appreciate any and all input.
Thank you....
Forrest
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