Hello,
Unfortunately I see one major problem for the wide spread of this linux based solutions : X protocol is heavy, it works well in the network of the school but if you want the students to have access to their applications from an internet connection there was no way to compete against RDP from Microsoft (or ICA from Citrix). In my University they deployed RDP and Windows Terminal Servers for this reason. In this context, I recently discovered and tested the NX protocol for X (from nomachine in Italy www.nomachine.com ). The good thing is that it works very well from the internet and the NX protocol (which is GPL) is very efficient. The down side, from the Free Software point of view, is that the clients are proprietary and the servers too ( a fraction of the price of Windows Terminal Server). The good thing is that they are willing and pushing to see the development of a complete free solution but so far I have the impression they weren't heard well enough ... :-( I really think this problem of internet access to the applications is a key issue for Linux Based digital work spaces.
Did you test it ? Thank you for all your work for free software in education. Francois Schnell Few links : NX developers resources : NX / nomachine mailing lists :
News about NX integration with LTSP:
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