[K12OSN] OT, slightly: loading OS remotely, running locally

[Jim Kronebusch]

> Actually, I was thinking Linux or something. We don't have a 
> powerful  enough server to do thin terminals, but do have machines 
> that are  capable of holding their own. I just don't want 30 copies 
> of the OS.  
> (And I don't want any copies of Windows if I don't have to have them.)

That sounds more feasible.  I thought you still wanted Windows.

I don't know the particulars but I think the following might work for you in
your lab.  I have seen out here users who have made their "gold" linux system
image with all the customizations and apps and put a read only copy of the
image locally on the machine.  So everytime the machine boots it pulls the
fresh image from the local hard drive similar to that of a live CD, the user
can mess with it all they want but the next reboot puts it back to square one.
 That wouldn't require a server for the OS but would still allow you to NFS
mount /home and authenticate however you want while managing a single image. 
You could blow the image around with g4u or many other options I have seen
mentioned.

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