Can I install an operating system and a set of applications on the basis of a simple configuration file?

Question

Can operating systems' installers read an input file where I specify the programs I want to be installed?

E.g.:

-- Apps to install
postgresql
gcc
doxygen
ftp://ftp.irisa.fr/pub/mirrors/gnuplot
...

In this example, when only the program's name is specified, the installer should install its latest stable version, when the URL is specified it could download it by itself.

This would allow to install multiple systems with the same set of tools, even if they are part of different distributions, or with different kernels (e.g. Linux, BSD, HURD, Minix, ...), in different dates.

Alternatively, is there a tool that allows to install a set of applications on the basis of the previous text file, when the operating system is already in place?

The advantage of such an approach would be that it would be much easier and quicker to switch from one system to another, keeping the same environment.

Answer 1

There are many Configuration Management or Infrastructure as Code solutions that can do this.

However, they will be a bit more complex than your example.

SaltStack, Puppet, and Chef can all run locally without a central server setup, are all cross platform, and open source.