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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?"

10 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. Re:Easy... by DaGoodBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No No NO! Just say 'no' to imaging... Debian supports preseeded configured values to be passed to a blank system during its install and a very easy method to run a script before and after the second stage installer. Do yourself a favor and actually track the tweaks you perform on a client when you build a system. Document them and put them in the install scripts. Then you can rely on the hardware detection method built into the Debian installer to allow you a diverse hardware ecology, consistent packages and a sliding target going forward as the repository ages.

      Just my $0.02 from a fellow sysadmin who has left imaging and never looked back!

      DaGoodBoy

      --
      My God! It's full of Voids!
  2. Give up already! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They cancelled the show people. Enterprise is not getting an update. Let's stop kicking the dead horse already!

  3. $15,000 a year... by duh_lime · · Score: 5, Funny

    would pay for a lot of students to do the work by hand.. And they'd learn something.

    OK.. there are better ways, but at least the money is not going to the Evil Empire.

  4. Re:rpm upgrade by pegr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Guys, he said he was an IT Director. Please don't go confusing him with crontab this or apt-get that...

    At least tell him to find his favorite geek to explain it to him...

  5. Zenworks for Linux/RedCarpet by KingDaveRa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Zenworks for Desktops (ie Windows) is now a pretty advanced and mature product. It works pretty damn well. Zenworks for Linux is pretty immature by comparison. I've seen Novell making LOTS of noise about it, but then again, they would. From what I've seen though, its the only enterprise-grade software from a major vendor to offer a central control system. Most others are very fragmented.

  6. Same boat by Jett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm in the same boat where I work. I'm trying to get Firefox officially supported, the biggest sticking point is the lack of an easy method to push updates. I think this is one of the biggest reasons Firefox isn't widely deployed in the corporate environment yet, sure it's easy to install it yourself and update it yourself - but that's not a solution in a controlled environment.

  7. 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.

  8. Re:rpm upgrade by wallykeyster · · Score: 5, Funny

    Believe it or not, some IT management rises from within, some have undergrad degrees in Comp Sci, and some run FreeBSD, OS 10.3, Windows 2000, and Windows XP on boxes at home.