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Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

Can LibreOffice on Linux deliver management solutions?

Think of 1,000 workstations, a small to mid-sized network: you need software that automates installation, configuration, security, etc. It's not like at home: Even if everyone is in the same building, you can't manually install, configure, change configuration, upgrade, etc. 1,000 times (think about it; not only the time and quality issues, but you'd spend a total of days just walking around). With Microsoft Office, you click a box in Group Policy and the entire group, or whatever subset you desire, changes configuration. You can automate installs, patches, etc.

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Linux has multiple options for configuration management: Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Salt, Nix, etc. You can even write a quick loop on the shell of your choice and orchestrate your machines that way if only want to rely on stock software...

Yes. I should have framed the issue more carefully: Are they as efficient as Windows' Active Directory and Group Policy? It's a bit of a hard-to-define question, and not many people have the experience to answer it.

I've seen plenty of deployment and configuration management tools that definitely fit the definition - those are easy to make - but were inefficient for one reason or another; that's the hard part.

One major advantage of AD/GP is the market power of being the tools for the dominant corporate OS: Every application vendor who hopes to put a toe in the corporate market makes their product work with AD/GP, including GPOs (Group Policy Objects) that provide the settings to manage their product, makes sure they work sufficiently well (at least they have incentive to try!), and supports them. If they don't, then corporate IT usually won't give them the time of day - it's a job requirement; their 'resume' goes in the circular file. Given Linux server share, I could imagine some good tools there.

A secret of IT management - the difference between what even highly skilled hackers do at home, and IT administration - is that the time resource is highly constrained; it's the most valuable asset and you spend it very carefully. You don't have nearly the time to do everything you need to do; you certainly aren't spending it trying to make some application work with your Linux config management for purposes of - what? your FOSS hard/wide-on? what is the big ROI here for this major project that you're going to bring to the VP? - and do it over and over again for each application. It's not even a consideration.

> but were inefficient for one reason or another; that's the hard part.

The efficiency of such tools is mostly just a matter of familiarity. It's like asking what programming language is most efficient to do e.g. web development. There may be arguments for X or Y language depending on the specifics of what you're going to do and what you value, but ultimately the most important factor that determines whether it feels efficient to work with or not is how familiar you are with it.

> you certainly aren't spending it trying to make some application work with your Linux config management

I struggle to think of them needing to be aware of one another. Configuration management is pretty much completely a matter of moving configuration files and running commands. It's pretty universal. There's no "make some application work with your Linux config management". Configuration management systems may provide application-specific helpers that make things neater, but if you can copy files, maybe template them, and run commands, you're pretty much set.

> The efficiency of such tools is mostly just a matter of familiarity.

That is just not true. Think of making that statement about any software - is the efficiency of all software roughly equal?

> I struggle to think of them needing to be aware of one another.

IT administrators have an order of magnitude less time than you seem to imagine, and an order of magnitude more systems and subsystems and components to manage than you imagine: It's not that they can't copy files and run commands, it's that they don't have time to learn to do that, manage it (including documenting procedures, changes, etc.), and implementing it for every action for every application on every system. It's not like your personal computers - the magnitude makes it a different thing entirely.

The application needs to provide a management component that integrates with the admin's system management tool, just like your new railcar needs to integrate with the train tracks. Now if your railcar is really valuable, the train company might adapt it themselves, and IT admins do that, but it's a real cost. (OK, the railcar analogy is a bit of an exaggeration, but not as much as you think.)

Linux has directories and config/package/fleet management as well. No one in the past 20 years should be walking to every desk in 1,000 desk building installing software.

> No one in the past 20 years should be walking to every desk in 1,000 desk building installing software.

Maybe even 50 years, if one considers that they could've automated the installations through telnet.

I remember walking to every computer in primary schools to do operations in the 90s, so I figured might as well play it safe with “20 years.” :)

There’s definitely been solutions to this problem since the dawn of computing, albeit with uneven availability.

This is basically core reason why LiMux failed - previous German project doing exactly the same - and will be the reason why this project fails as well.

ORLY? My understanding is that LiMux failed because the then mayor was trying to get Microsoft to move to Munich.

I would say that's more a Windows feature than something tied to MS Office.

But yes, Active Directory is unmatched for administration of a big number of computers and local networks.

Your admin uses cfengine for example

https://cfengine.com/

Ansible could easily do this

Linux has far superior management solutions when compared to anything Microsoft has.

First, start with software packaging: In Microsoft-land, there is MSI, but there is also stuff delivered as .zip, .exe (generated from tons of different install builders, so completely inconsistent) and a handful of half-assed package non-solutions like chocolatey, nuget and others. When you want to install something, and there is an MSI, and the MSI can accept a proper set of parameters, you are in luck. If its an .exe (and even most Microsoft software doesn't consistently come as an MSI), good luck finding the right set of parameters for an unattended install, repackaging it as MSI or one of the other proprietary formats du jour. This repackaging is of course done in each and every company, all over again, for each version.

In Linux, there is a consistent format per distribution, and the distribution does all of my packaging for me. If I want libreoffice, I'll type something like 'dnf install libreoffice' and I'm done. If I want to update all the installed packages on one machine, 'dnf update', wait a little, done. No hunting for a bazillion updates in various weird formats (even Microsoft patches come as .exe with inconsistent parameters and stuff) on a bazillion different websites. And removing software, the bane of any windows installation? The stuff where the solution is usually 'reinstall'? dnf remove libreoffice. The package manager keeps track of all installed files and does a reliable, reproducible removal. If necessary, configs can be kept for a later reinstallation or deleted automatically, no guessing what to save and what to delete. No "nobody tests the uninstall.exe ever".

If I want to install a thousand packages on a thousand machines consistently, I'll give the package list to dnf on each machine via my preferred management software, be it 'for i in $hostlist ; do ssh $i dnf install ...' or (far better) something like ansible, puppet, cfengine, ....

Consistent configuration? Easy, same software, use a regular ansible, puppet or cfengine run to distribute necessary changes.

Update management and keeping older versions for a staged beta/testing/production software rollout? Easy, you can host your own package repositories. Want it fancy? Use Foreman and Katello, then your former windows GPO click monkeys can now click through staged Linux rollouts. Meanwhile cursing about how many years of their lives they wasted on Microsoft "solutions".

Sorry if I come across somewhat annoyed. But any Windows setup I've ever seen has been abysmal compared to even the worst-run Linux shop out there. Just even something as trivial as a for-loop and ssh being possible makes such a huge difference. And the openness and distribution model make it easier to automate everything and be reproducible and consistent.

Another Internet rant. Does that make it more likely or less likely to be accurate?

Have you adminstered autmomated, managed networks? Using Windows? Some of the things you say indicate not. For example, things are not nearly as difficult as you say and consumer Windows installations aren't used:

> removing software, the bane of any windows installation?

Also,

> Just even something as trivial as a for-loop and ssh being possible makes such a huge difference.

I'm not sure what you are saying is missing in Windows. You can run remote commands from a cli and automation definitely supports loops.

> any Windows setup I've ever seen has been abysmal compared to even the worst-run Linux shop out there