Remote installation and configuration software, preferrably open source

Question

Im looking for some remote-installation software. I've looked briefly at unattended, opsi and a bunch of stuff, but there is nowhere near enough time to evaluate them all, and they are rather complex to setup so some insight would be very appreciated.

This is foremost for windows clients, but linux support would be good. Something like apt-get would've been great.

Requirements:

• Simple to setup and use
• Set up groups of users (developers, management, sales, etc)
• Chose which software to be installed for different groups
• Add new software to groups and it will be automatically installed on client
• Dependencies between software

Nice-to-have:

• Linux client support
• OS-unattended installation

thanks in advance

Answer 1

see this question: Fully automated software deployment and update system

Answer 2

If it's for Windows, then there's a Windows server based product-- Windows installation services. It's written for purpose and does the job well. I haven't personally used it, but my head-of-windows from a couple of years ago used it and swore by it.

You have to create .MSI files for your packages, then you just create a base image and a list of things (i.e., developers, sales, etc) and those packages get installed for that class of machine.