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>> I realized I only need two types of systems in my life. One hosted |
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>> server and bunch of identical laptops. My laptop, my wife's laptop, |
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>> our HTPC, routers, and office workstations could all be on identical |
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>> hardware, and what better choice than a laptop? Extremely |
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>> space-efficient, portable, built-in UPS (battery), and no need to buy |
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>> a separate monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, camera, etc. Some |
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>> systems will use all of that stuff and some will use none, but it's |
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>> OK, laptops are getting cheap, and keyboard/mouse/video comes in handy |
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>> once in a while on any system. |
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> |
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> Laptops are a good choice, desktops are almost dead out there, and thin |
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> clients nettops are just dead in the water for anything other than |
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> appliances and media servers |
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> |
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>> What if my laptop is the master system and I install any application |
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>> that any of the other laptops need on my laptop and push its entire |
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>> install to all of the other laptops via rsync whenever it changes? |
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>> The only things that would vary by laptop would be users and |
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>> configuration. |
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> |
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> Could work, but don't push *your* laptop's config to all the other |
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> laptops. they end up with your stuff which might not be what them to |
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> have. Rather have a completely separate area where you store portage |
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> configs, tree, packages and distfiles for laptops/clients and push from |
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> there. |
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I actually do want them all to have my stuff and I want to have all |
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their stuff. That way everything is in sync and I can manage all of |
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them by just managing mine and pushing. How about pushing only |
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portage configs and then letting each of them emerge unattended? I |
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know unattended emerges are the kiss of death but if all of the |
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identical laptops have the same portage config and I emerge everything |
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successfully on my own laptop first, the unattended emerges should be |
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fine. |
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> I'd recommend if you have a decent-ish desktop lying around, you press |
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> that into service as your master build host. yeah, it takes 10% longer |
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> to build stuff, but so what? Do it overnight. |
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Well, my goal is to minimize the number of different systems I |
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maintain. Hopefully just one type of laptop and a server. |
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>> Maybe puppet could help with that? It would almost be |
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>> like my own distro. Some laptops would have stuff installed that they |
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>> don't need but at least they aren't running Fedora! :) |
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> |
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> DO NOT PROVISION GENTOO SYSTEMS FROM PUPPET. |
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OK, I'm thinking over how much variation there would be from laptop to laptop: |
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1. /etc/runlevels/default/* would vary of course. |
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2. /etc/conf.d/net would vary for the routers and my laptop which I |
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sometimes use as a router. |
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3. /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf under the same conditions as #2. |
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4. Users and /home would vary but the office workstations could all be |
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identical in this regard. |
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Am I missing anything? I can imagine everything else being totally identical. |
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What could I use to manage these differences? |
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> Rather keep your laptop as your laptop with it's own setup, and |
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> everything else as that own setup. You only need one small difference |
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> between what you want your laptop to have, and everything else to have, |
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> to crash that entire model. |
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I think it will work if I can find a way to manage the few differences |
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above. Am I overlooking any potential issues? |
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- Grant |
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