Maintaining software as a user (on a cluster)

Question

Every cluster of computers I've encountered suffers from the same problem: its software is outdated. Naturally, one has the ability as a user to install everything from source in the home directory. I was wondering if there are any tools that would allow one to install and update software within home directory the same way package managers do in Linux distributions, i.e. with minimal pain and effort.

I have found toast, which is good, but not always reliable and up-to-date. Are there alternatives?

My particular needs at the moment are a recent version of GCC, boost, python, cmake.

Answer 1

I recommended using a sensible distribution for your cluster nodes. Then keeping the nodes up-to-date can be as simple as running the package manager, which you can even do via a distributed shell on all nodes at once. And for what it is worth, my choice would be Debian or Ubuntu.

Answer 2

You could try nix (http://nixos.org/). I haven't used it, so I don't know if it's more up-to-date than toast.

Answer 3

The thread on ServerFault gives several options.

Answer 4

Either use a package manager that installs/updates on all cluster nodes transparently or create a directory that is shared (i.e. network file system) from all nodes