Managing PC Operating Systems with a Revision Control System

During the lifetime of a workstation the system administrator is faced with constant change in system configuration (updates, new software). The users of a workstation, too, may change the system configuration. We describe the necessary concepts for maintaining many similar configured PC clients in a lab environment. The main software component consists of fsrcs,a revision control system similar to RCS and SCCS. The revision control software is available without charge. Motivation This paper was motivated by the need to reduce the huge administrative effort for running a computer training room at the Department of Applied Computer Science. It is the first attempt at our university of a fully automatic client installation and update solution using free software. The students can handle the following from the boot-prompt of the PC client without assistance of the system administrator: 1. Repair or install Linux software (operating system and applications) on the PC. 2. Repair o..