If you're responsible for the machines you run how can you abdicate that responsibility by using whatever some package maintainer decides to give you? At the University of Michigan we use Linux from Scratch to manage hundreds of machines that provide everything from web servers to IMAP servers to user Desktops & Laptops. The trick is leveraging the work used to administer one machine well out to hundreds of machines. The tool for this is radmind. Radmind doesn't require that you build your software from source, but it leverages the work you put into one machine to manage all of your machines.
It also integrates a tripwire with your management software which means you can detect unwanted filesystem changes in addition to managing software.
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If you're responsible for the machines you run how can you abdicate that responsibility by using whatever some package maintainer decides to give you? At the University of Michigan we use Linux from Scratch to manage hundreds of machines that provide everything from web servers to IMAP servers to user Desktops & Laptops. The trick is leveraging the work used to administer one machine well out to hundreds of machines. The tool for this is radmind. Radmind doesn't require that you build your software from source, but it leverages the work you put into one machine to manage all of your machines. It also integrates a tripwire with your management software which means you can detect unwanted filesystem changes in addition to managing software.