Resolved Premise of a custom time machine backup / preconfig system

So I am looking for advice insights from some of the more advanced mac users here.

The story:
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I am a recent migrant to the mac world from Linux, predominantly working in the programming / computational fluids side of science. As some of you may know, one of the beauties of linux is the ability to distribute preconfigured builds (for example CAELinux which comes preinstalled with an entire engineering tool kit). After playing around with my mac's, I've started dabbling in the way which time machine/migration assistant work, and they appear to be possibilities for doing such things as distributing preconfigured packages in bulk.

This was a very useful feature in linux, since our entire lab/workforce was able to have all utilities installed and preconfigured from scratch without the need to manually go through installing them.

The concept:
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Create a "time machine backup" that contains preconfigured/setup builds of tools like gfortran/MPI/VisIt/OpenFOAM/etcetera (all open source software similar to CAELinux) as well as all their dependencies.
Then use migration assistant to install all these on a system in a single step.

Perhaps start something like the equivalent of CAELinux but for OSx

Now obviously said distribution would be void of any paid or licensed software, in fact a majority of the packages I am considering are linux ports which many of us are starting to use on macs (but are sometimes incredibly difficult to get working/configured properly)

The questions:
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Am I crazy?
Is something like this feasible?
Could you think of better alternatives of doing such a thing?
Do you want to join me on my crazy project?

 

Would said method be able to copy all necessary dependancies while excluding the operating system itself?

If I were to do this, I need to do it in a fashion in which I can distribute the package without violating/infringing upon any copyrights.

and thanks for taking the time to reply =)

 

By the term 'dependencies' I do mean it in the linux sense.
For example, the software OpenFOAM is compiled from source, and carries dependencies on LibPy, gcc, and gmake.

This is the case for most of the software I am attempting to distribute, and as many people who work with source know, it can be very time consuming to set up all dependencies and compile from source.

I had no idea ARD was so robust. I'm going to look into it as an option.

As mentioned above, the packages are distributed as source (I don't know if the correct term in the mac world for that would be package, pardon my terminology but I'm a long time *nix guy).

The question for the ARD proposers would be, is ARD an effective method of distributing the software where I only have to build on a single machine and deploy on many? Also it would appear that taking this route would require me to be present to do such deployment (which I would rather shy away from).

Thank you everyone for the responses and suggestions!

 

OMG! I love you right now

I think installease alone will do everything I need it to do. I'll just compile everything on my base machine, turn it into a single .pkg, and distribute that for end users to install

it completely omits the operating system - solves the issue of compiling - and solves the issue of simplified distribution

THANK YOU!

 

I'll definitely check it out! May help me with my transition from Linux to Mac... There are a few things I love, and there are a few I hate (until I find solutions for them).

I think we all picked up some pretty valuable stuff from this thread...

I should start more like it