Ubuntu CD's for Free

[A. Khattri]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004, Net Llama! wrote:

> How many servers are you maintaining.  I can't fathom maintaining alarge
> number of server (where large is 100+) with the 'very easy to customize
> and very easy to maintain' method that you've noted above.

Why not? Its no different from setting up a local up-to-date repository
for your servers to update against. Even, better, if all your machines are
x86, you can pre-build binary packages at night automatically and
distribute them as part of a later rsync process so the binaries are
already there in the morning.

Another feature I didn't mention: since the Gentoo is based around a
source package system, it is optmized for building stuff and so has tools
for distributing compile jobs across a cluster of servers - I haven't
tried this myself yet (my machines are fast enough but Im told it can
really speed things up even more).

> Generally
> speaking customization and maintanence are mutually exclusive without alot
> of resources.

Normally I would agree however, since you can customize on a per-package
basis by setting flags in Portage config files, you can build custom
packages as part of the normal maintenance process - it doesn't require
anything special apart from setting the flags for a package the first time
you build it.


-- 
purple wire n.

 [IBM] Wire installed by Field Engineers to work
   around problems discovered during testing or debugging.  These are
   called `purple wires' even when (as is frequently the case) their
   actual physical color is yellow....  Compare blue wire,
   yellow wire, and red wire.