Large Scale Management - Linux vs Solaris?

A not-so anonymous, Anonymous Coward asks: "I work for a college that offers undergraduate computer science classes, and the school would like to add a new lab with about a hundred computers for students to use, for various class projects. After some non-trivial effort, we convinced the school to set up a Unix lab rather than a Windows one. However, we can't decide whether to go for Solaris or Linux. Regardless of the cost of hardware, I couldn't get agreed with my colleagues about the amount of efforts required to manage a hundred of Linux PCs vs. a hundred Sparc boxes. I believe that there are many Slashdot readers are actual managers for labs like this if not in large scales. What are your experiences of managing Linux PCs versus traditional Solaris boxes?"

"My detailed questions are:

1. Compared between these two different systems, how easy to maintain the software for all these machines (including re-installation, patching, and updating)? What software do you use to make these management jobs easier?

2. Are there any fundamental differences between managing a large group of linux PCs and managing a large group of Solaris boxes?"

Comments

Re:Why not Mac OS X?

[0x0d0a]

Because the point of OS X is general purpose software and eye candy, neither of which is relevant for a CS cluster.

I don't think there's anything else you mentioned for which there isn't a Linux equivalent.

Re:Why not Mac OS X?

[Drakon]

All of these have an equivelant on linux and probably solaris. If any of them DON'T, they're not relavent because you don't want to teach students to use tools that won't be available to them in corporate environment unix development (where linux just recently caught a foothold, and mac OSX will not be the dominant platform in the foreseeable future) Apple's prices when compared to sparcs are cheap, but not when compared to x86 boxen.

On some of your points:
JDK 1.4.1: Why the hell do you point this out? This is like pointing out the macs ability to have a keyboard attached. It wouldn't be a real computer without it.
BSD based: why is this better than SysV based OS? I'm fairly sure that linux, solaris AND OSX have most of the best features of both anyway. The old lines have been smudged.
Netboot/Netinstall: Irrelavent. you're pointing out that OSX has a new feature which Linux has had since 2.0 and solaris has had since before it was called solaris.

In short, I fear that IHBT.