[Macpartners] Summer 2006 Software Snapshot for Macintosh, Windows and Linux

[Atticus Gifford]

Good afternoon,

The Software Snapshot Release Team (formerly the CD Release Team) has  
begun work on this year's software delivery for incoming students on  
Macintosh, Windows and Linux platforms.  While the past five release  
efforts have focused on a CD-based distribution system, this year we  
are attempting to update and refine the process by shifting our  
emphasis towards a web-based solution.

The History of the CD:
The CD was originally produced to handle the bottleneck of new  
students who arrive at the start of the fall term needing the core  
software applications installed on their computers and was especially  
helpful to those with slow Internet connections.  Each year, the CD  
becomes less necessary as more students have access to faster  
Internet connections and more of the core software comes pre-installed.

The CD often becomes outdated shortly after the Fall rollout due to  
new version updates.  As the year progresses, the CD becomes more of  
a support liability as it installs increasingly older versions of our  
recommended software packages.  Emphasizing software download will  
reduce the number of 'stale' CD's being used for software  
installation throughout the year.  We will update the Software  
Snapshot page regularly (quarterly or more frequently as resources  
allow) to keep its contents current.  We expect it will provide a  
useful starting point for new members of the MIT community at any  
time of year, not just the Fall.

As part of our new strategy, this year the team will create a one  
stop shopping "getting connected" page for students.  A new tab off  
the current software download page will be added to accommodate this  
page and include links to the getting connected documents and readmes  
as well as an essential subset of our full suite of downloadable  
installers.  By having these options available, students (as well as  
faculty and staff) will be able to get up and running with our core  
recommended applications more quickly and easily.  We will also be  
providing each "snapshot" of our core packages in an archive format  
for convenient single-file download.  This will also make it easy for  
local administrators to grab the latest core installers and burn them  
to a CD for multiple-machine installations.

Our goal is to have the first revision of the page up and ready for  
incoming students by June 1.  We plan to revise the page and have the  
first round of corresponding CD's available later in the summer prior  
to Fall Readiness activities.  Because not everyone has the ability  
to download and/or burn CD's, a CD version of the aforementioned  
archives will be made available at the front desk of N42.

For more information on the new web page and release effort, see the  
Software Snapshot Release Notebook at:

http://web.mit.edu/swrt/releases/snapshot/

If you have any questions or suggestions,  please contact the team  
via email at snapshot-release at mit.edu.


The list of software (subject to change):
Windows:
Adobe Reader 7
Gaim 1.5.0
Kerberos for Windows 2.6.5
KLP 1.0.1
SecureCRT 5.1
SecureFX 3.1
TechTime Desktop Client 9.0.4
TSM 5.2.3
VirusScan 8.0i
VPN client 4.6

Macintosh:
Adium 0.89
Adobe Reader 7
Fetch 5.0.2
Kerberos Extras (for 10.2 - 10.4)
TechTime Desktop Client 9.0.4
TSM 5.3.4
Virex 7.2.1
VPN Client 4.9 for 10.4 and later
VPN Client 4.8 for 10.3 and earlier (PowerPC only)

Linux:
(we will differentiate between RHEL 3&4 for relevant packages)
Adobe Reader 7
Kerberos config files
LPRng
OpenAFS
Pine 4.62L
TechTime Desktop Client 9.0.4
TSM 5.2
Up2date
VirusScan 4.2.4
VPN
Zephyr


Thanks,
IS&T Snapshot Release Team

William Cattey
Atticus Gifford
Alex Kozlov
Jonathan Reed
Lee Ridgway
Thomas Smith
Christine Verick
Al Willis