[Techtalk] keeping packages in sync

[Kay Nettle]

Those of you that support multiple machines, how do you keep your 
machines in sync?  We have a somewhat different setup right now.  We 
do a server install, delete some packages and add others, then build 
most of the software in house (X, gnome, kde, several versions of gcc, 
etc).  If there is a security update, we install it on one machine and
rdist that around to all our linux hosts.  We went with building almost
everything because we were trying to make all our platforms look as
close to the same as possible. 

We've gotten rid of most of our other platforms, although we still have
a few solaris machines out.  Since we are 99% linux, we thought we'd try
to switch to using all ubuntu packages (or as much as we can).  I don't
want to use rdist anymore, one of my co-worker has suggested that we use
pkgsync.  I want to be able to install the updates on one machine, test
if it breaks anything, then have all the desktops (~600) install the
updates.  Is anyone using pkgsync?  Does anyone have any suggestions
(other than rolling my own setup)?

Thanks,
Kay