Objective

To create a DSL thin client for use throughout the house on low powered totally quiet PCs with nothing hanging out of them (USB pens etc.). These clients should be able to:

1. rDesktop / VNC into numerous hosted OS's on server (Windows 2003 SBS) running VMWare Server.
2. Have independent access to multimedia also stored on server to allow for playing of media files. There should be restrictions on permissions to delete / move files from within linux. (I have accidentally deleted many things before in this manner).
3. Have a bespoke Gui (.lua) to go to specific virtual computers via VNC / rDesktop without having to type in computer name / user name / password.

In the process I plan to write astep by step guide to help others to repeat the project and also help others to understand some of the issues associated with a move to Linux from Windows.

Other thoughts:
It has been suggested that I go for a network boot option using pxe. In the past I have tried spectacularly unsuccessfully to do this before and wasted hours and hours trying to resolve hardware issues and Windows Server 2003 (SBS) issues and really got no where fast. Since then, I have been told that it is much easier with recent DSL developments. As such I have added the network boot option onto my project plan.