[tristan_mason]

Am just running my full catalog with the 10.6.5 Combo Updater in it to make sure it will complete. Once done i’l post the result.

T

[tristan_mason]

After all that i’ve just tested the 10.6.5 catalogue you posted and it works a treat. i’ll process it in my catalog now to make sure it goes all the way! I’ll let you know when its completed.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

Thanks Nate

I stuck in Uptodate and it works fine now.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

Thanks “thespider” for the useful reply. I’ve had an issue with account creation where it creates the account but not all the folders that should be inside it eg: the “public” and “sites” folder at best and all of them accept the “Library” folder at worst hence I was wondering if the order made any difference.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

I think my problem was my lack of knowledge with making packages from a snapshot in Composer. It was my first try at the end of a long day and I think I made a hash of it by not concentrating. Time permitting i’l have another crack at it this week.

We have a site license for it but yes, I am trying to get it in the process serialised.

Cheers

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

sorry but I couldn’t post for about 4 days and it was driving me mad. kept getting an error message. was it me or the site?

[tristan_mason]

testing…

[tristan_mason]

OD is another whole world for me to get into which I don’t have time for right now and I need to see how it would fit in with the rest of what we have and do here. The Mac OS kit is the smaller part of our operation although it is my domain to manage and I’m just trying to get the modular imaging working this break and leave the monolithic method behind so it’s kinda one step at a time. As I spend more time researching and building the more tools for management seem to present themselves. All good grist for the mill.

I can see perhaps 2 strands developing here for my needs, perhaps one for the Labs which is set and forget. We use Deep Freeze so once it’s done other than an update (the main reason I went for modular imaging) we don’t need to touch it until next year/time it needs an overhaul. Staff could be managed by first boot or OD as they are a little more tied in to our systems as users and it may be a more flexible on demand way of delivering settings, updates and services to them.

Just a thought.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

Hi Allister

I’ve found with iLife that Composer has taken most of the hassle out of it as it builds a fully patched pkg. In fact Composer has taken a lot of dog work out of the whole thing for a lot of what we use like CS5, iLife, Perian, OpenOffice etc etc with its pre-built diff files. Apps like Keyserve and Sophos too. The rest i’ve got from here which has been a great place to get the good oil.

I was sort of wondering out loud what would happen if an app was going to mess with an account or vice versa in the process but now that I have created an almost complete master minus a thing or two I can see that most interactions are pretty straight forward. All part of the learning process and seeing if instadmg did everything that I would normally do when creating master images monolithically. I’ve now satisfied myself that it can do almost everything I would have done. I’ve also been turned onto better ways of doing things perhaps too such as MCX and Workgroup and First boot Scripts.

All good stuff.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

Am just baking a complete image as I type. The mother of all tests so to speak. It’s my base image for staff. All other iterations will be based on it.

I too will be adding Final Cut Studio 3 and SPSS 19 so i’ll share my experience once i’ve had a crack at it. Composer as a pre-bult script for SPSS but it’s for version 13. I have emailed them and asked them if they can build an update for it. I installed SPSS 19 yesterday and used a snapshot difference file to try and make a pkg. It seemed to do the trick until I tried to use it, no go. It’s a bit of a tricky software package what with it’s licensing and all. I’ll keep you posted as to my progress.

I’ve got to add Logic Express and Final Cut Express on another Image but there are quite a few forum posts for those. I feel like i’m over the hump for most of it.

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

The other consideration for me at present is that i’m learning as I go so i’ll use the one at a time approach, get it working well then look at the firstboot commands and learn that then try and integrate it.

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

Hi Nate

Thanks for the good oil. I’m generally not a script kinda guy but it seems as though this is a rather more elegant way to preform a setup rather than the one pkg per setting. I’ve just got a shiny new Mac Mini Snow Server and i’ll be having a look a using the Workgroup Manager for managed prefs too. So many options, so much to learn. It’s slow here at the office now that the school year has ended. Time for research…

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

Thanks for that. It should be called “all and sundry goes here”…

Regards

Tristan

[tristan_mason]

hi there
it may be my installer that I created for the plist files. I need to check it and make sure i’ve got it doing nothing nasty. it is deleting all folders in the admin account user folder accept the library folder.
regards
tristan

[tristan_mason]

Hi There

I just copied the iLife pkg from the DVD (actually i had made a dmg of the install DVD and copied it from that but same diff), generated a checksum and dropped it into my catalogue file, popped the pkg in the instaUp2DatePackages folder, put the updates after it and presto…

Regards

Tristan

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