Hi,
What about installing Linux in a VirtualBox(it's free!) virtual machine running under Windows?

I know this implies a certain level of hardware so if the machines in question are old/slow/not much memory this may not be a solution.
I run both ways! ... linux under windows and windows under linux .... on hardware that is up to 8 years old (thinkpad t40,t61) with satisfactory (but not spectacular) results.

Just a suggestion.

cheers
pete

pete hilton
saruman@ruvolo-hilton.org

Yes, I have thought about that. I have used VB since the innotek days.

As you noted, hardware details would control that option.

All of the responses thus far have provided me a good start about what to watch for and what questions to ask.

on my old computer at home which was bios not EFI, and running windows xp, it was a breeze to take opensuse from an install dvd and install. grub would become the boot loader and present a nice boot menu giving you an option to choose either windows or linux, with one windows being the default and auto booting in 7 seconds or whatever if a choice was not made.
i believe grub2 is much better at doing all this now, but i haven't messed with it.
i would evaluate what windows version you are running, 7 or 8, and are the computers older with BIOS or do they have EFI?
Depending on the make/model of computer the EFI will let you store boot options, and it will choose boot option #1 and if that fails will then go to boot option #2 and so on. so if your computers assuming they are desktops had removable hard drives on sleds you could make it so it boots the one drive that's installed... or grub presents the option which operating system to boot. whether you install linux around windows on the same hard drive is one way, or have a 2nd hard drive in computer that has linux. I know opensuse installed around windows xp no problem if there was space on the hard drive, not sure if it can still do that with win7. with all the crap that comes with win8 wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't work anymore.

From my little bit of experimentation LTSP is exactly what you want for this. Persistent live flash drives are great, until you lose them. I lose my car keys a couple times a week, and I use them every day. You need a central location for all of this stuff. Should't be to hard to throw together a respectable server for it.