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Can LibreOffice on Linux deliver management solutions? Think of 1,000 workstations, a small to mid-sized network: you need software that automates installation

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.

lfkdev 3y ago
Ansible could easily do this
schmichael 3y ago
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.
- jolmg 3y ago
  > 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.
  - schmichael 3y ago
    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.
jolmg 3y ago
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...
- wolverine876 3y ago
  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.
  - jolmg 3y ago
    > 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.
splittingTimes 3y ago
Your admin uses cfengine for example https://cfengine.com/ https://cfengine.com/
TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
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.
- chris_wot 3y ago
  ORLY? My understanding is that LiMux failed because the then mayor was trying to get Microsoft to move to Munich.
tichiian 3y ago
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.
Shorel 3y ago
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.

lfkdev 3y ago

Ansible could easily do this

schmichael 3y ago

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.

jolmg 3y ago
> 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.
- schmichael 3y ago
  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.

jolmg 3y ago

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...

wolverine876 3y ago
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.
- jolmg 3y ago
  > 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.

splittingTimes 3y ago

Your admin uses cfengine for example https://cfengine.com/ https://cfengine.com/

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago

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.

chris_wot 3y ago
ORLY? My understanding is that LiMux failed because the then mayor was trying to get Microsoft to move to Munich.

tichiian 3y ago

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.

Shorel 3y ago

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.