David Corbin wrote:
I've considered the idea of a custom distribution to do this. There is no doubt in my mind, that any such distribtuion would be based on an existing one, with tweaks that deal with where updates come from, and what packages are availble, etc. Gentoo or Debian are the two likely candidates. I'm not *sure* a customized distribution is appropriate.
There's an excellent reason why Gentoo is seriously leaning towards calling itself a "metadistribution". Look into tools such as catalyst. You can build LiveCDs for installing into a known-good environment, "Stage 4" archives that require minimal configuration after installation, or even (since, as you mentioned, the targets fall into a few distinct categories) full disc images on (a) local staging box(es) and simply image everything across to the targets. If you're uncomfortable with having a production system loaded with gcc, portage, and such, you can build your own "releases" locally, and simply batch update the targets when convenient. The images built by catalyst are *not* required to contain portage or the portage tree.
Portage and catalyst are *very* powerful tools if you look into their depths. Rsync and friends used in conjunction with a local staging system can IMO make maintaining such a system incredibly easy.
Yes, I'm available for consulting. :P -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
