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Updating Free Software in the Enterprise?

Posted by Cliff on from the one-is-easy-one-hundred-isn't dept.

wallykeyster asks: "I'm an IT Director for a small private university in the U.S., and we are largely a Microsoft shop. We pay over $15,000 each year for our Campus Agreement so that we can upgrade the desktop OS to our version of choice, run Office, and have some Client Access Licenses. I would like to move to FOSS solutions, but I'm having trouble finding support for Enterprise management. For example, OpenOffice and Firefox (both of which I use personally) would be easy first steps, but IE is updated automatically via our SUS server (and settings pushed to clients via group policies) and Office updates will be included soon. How are other larger organizations (i.e. more than 200 desktops) dealing with software deployment and updates? Is anyone using Zen with Novell Desktop Linux?"

3 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. Easy... by ivan256 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Run a local Debian package repository, only put updates you want in it, point your system's sources.list at the local repository, and add the following to the crontab for every system you deploy:

    0 3 * * * /usr/bin/apt-get update; /usr/bin/apt-get upgrade -yq

    1. Re:Easy... by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Informative

      I believe his intention is to keep with Windows as the OS.
      He does mention starting with the easy ones.

      How do you perform a Windows based rollout, and make sure your settings are updated.

      Is there possibly a portion of the group policy which would run an msi/executable update?

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  2. Zenworks 7 by G+Money · · Score: 5, Informative

    We currently use Zenworks 6.6 to manage ~2000 NLD and SLES systems for system patching. It works great for that purpose. It doesn't offer more than very basic inventory management and reporting yet. I say yet because I'm on the beta for the next version and it is amazing. It makes managing Linux dekstops and servers ridiculously easy. If you've used Wen for Windows, they've basically pulled all the same functionality into the Linux realm. Imaging, patching, configuration management, security policies, reporting, inventory/asset management, remote access (vnc or ssh), everything is all wrapped into one bundle. Some of the other pieces we use are at our site if you're interested in other open source and commercial packages we use. It's not much more than basic marketing material at this point but feel free to ask any questions.