Solution for school lab

[Sergio de Almeida Lenzi]

I use a solution that is:
1) a "large" Freebsd box (phenon X4,8Gb of memory, 1TB disk)
2) OS=Freebsd 8.2 with all gnome2.32 installed
3) Virtualbox 10.x  installed in FreeBSD
4) NT 2003 server with unlimited number of users on rdp (the iso is in
internet or torrent).
5) internet connection
Here this would cost about US$400

Install the system using zfs, insert all users can hold about 1000 users
Setup FreeBSD to boot diskless (and so will run on all the old machines
in 
your place) using either pxe or custom CD.

The users will use Gnome interface, and those who wants windows,
can use via rdesktop, pointing on the NT server on the same machine.

You will need a swith with ONE gigabit port, and the others is
100Mbits...

This setup you have:
about 1200 applictions (from the FreBSDports),
some include:
java, eclipse, python, c, c++, multimedia, web browing, office,
printing, email, chat, calculator, vector drawing, dia (visio),
raster image editor (gimp), monodevelop(.NET devel framework),
sql (postgresql), sql administration (pgadmin3).

Reliable, fast, rock solid, central administration...

It just works....


[]

Sergio