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Netscape install (applies generically)
I hope this is not religious issue.
Please tell me if it is and I will withdraw the question.
I manage quite a few workstations and servers, in
engineering workgroup settings. Typically, each workgroup
is ~50-100 engineers, and these usually correspond to a NIS group.
The workgroups I manage are primarily Solaris based, though I have
one Debian Linux based group and a sprinkling of HP-UX hosts.
We've been upgrading to Solaris 8 which includes Netscape 4.7 as part
of the standard install. The problem is that Netscape will continue
to upgrade their browser and their partners will continue to upgrade
their plug-ins. As I see it, if I want to keep current, I need to
implement a Standard Install(tm) and then decide what to do with it.
I think I have essentially three ways to go about this:
a. NFS mount the Standard Install(tm)
b. Replicate the Standard Install(tm), e.g., via rdist, etc.
c. Install independently on each individual workstation, like most
Debian Linux packages.
I'd rather do (a) and avoid (c).
But I want to know if I'm fighting a trend.
The plug-in directory becomes another item in my LD_LIBRARY_PATH
either way.
Right now, I've got netscape local everywhere on my linux systems and
netscape NFS mounted on the Solaris systems. My preference is to use
one methodology.
Since I'm not worried about performance issues with netscape
specifically, that is not a factor in favor of a local install in
this instance. Otherwise, I think this is a generic question, i.e.,
substitute Package_X for netscape in the question.
On the Solaris side, I've been exploiting NFS for years. Typically,
there is an INSTALL_DIR for a package, and we automount it. But since
I started using Debian Linux, it seems like all packages are
distributed with a "disk is cheap and so is maintenance" local
installation bias. So now that Solaris is throwing more packages into
the /usr/dt/bin tree, I'm wondering why they decided against an NFS
mount or INSTALL_DIR approach. Did I miss the boat?
Comments welcome.
Mario Obejas
obejas@phylum.rsc.raytheon.com