Reference installations of NoMachine/FreeNX with or without MS AD-integration?

[Knut Yrvin <knuty@skolelinux.no>]

Utdanningsetaten (the municipal department of education) in Oslo
investigate and writes a report where one of the main suggestions is
to use NoMachine/FreeNX with centralised servers with Debian-based
Skolelinux.  The system should or could replace Citrix. We are in the
last two weeks with writing the report and have one or two
questions. First some background:

We have several ideas to accomplish an usable and maintainable
solution with reduced bandwidth to the schools, where the bandwidth
limitations are essential. The solution should be used with 2-8
Mbit/s. In short and simplified we are considering three solutions:

1. Using centralised NoMachine-servers with NoMachine/FreeNX-clients
   at the schools. The solution should integrate with MS Active
   Directory (file, print, e-mail etc), and authorisation through
   PAM. The users are managed by MS AD through a simplified
   application made for teachers, and a more complex interface that
   gets the pupils from a database with pupil data.

2. Using centralised NoMachine/FreeNX-servers with locally placed
   LTSP-servers or Lessdisks and NoMachine-clients with authorisation
   (through OpenLDAP, PAM and NSS)

3. Using an bandwidth optimised Skolelinux solution with Cerebrum
   (through OpenLDAP, PAM and NSS). Then we use Lessdisks (half thick
   clients) and Workstations with 1-2 servers locally, and centralised
   management.
   http://www.feide.no/feide-prosjektet/englishwww/about.html
   http://www.feide.no/feide-prosjektet/moter-apen/2003-10-29/english-version.txt

-- Our "simple" question is if anybody has some experience with use of
   NoMachine/FreeNX in a larger installation with alternative 1 (the
   MS AD-dependent suggestion)?

-- Does somebody have some experience with alternative 2 or 3 (the
   distro-issue is of less importance? :-)

Some background on the alternatives we are considering with Skolelinux:
http://developer.skolelinux.no/driftskonsepter/2004-09-06-thin-clients.html

Oslo is the capital city of Norway, and has 518,929 inhabitants and
around 60,000 pupils and 11,000 teachers at the 175 schools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo

Sincerely

Knut Yrvin
-- 
Project manager (cel: +47 908 95 765) Skolelinux Norway and OpenOffice
translation to Norwegian. Office 1: SLX Debian Labs Forskningsparken,
Gaustadalle 21, 0349 OSLO, NORWAY. Office 2: IT-Staff Akershus County
Council, Schweigaards gate 4, 0185 OSLO, NORWAY