Hey everyone..

I am looking at reviving some old machines by running terminal servies on them, and would like to use linux as the actual machines OS. I know it is possible with the use of rdesktop, but what i need help with is what dist should i use and whats the best way to set it up so that it will automatically login to linux and then start up rdesktop.

The reason i want it like this is so I don't get hassled by people saying "how do we do this.. how do we do that" etc.

I read an article on SysAdmin Magazine's website, but they were using Red Hat 7.1 in the article... I on the other hand would prefer to use debian (as that is my dist of choice), would it be possible to do without too much hassel? or am I better off going down the Red Hat path... i think i have a copy of 7.1 somewhere, but would really prefer to use a newer system if possible!

Any comments and opinions are more then welcome

Thanks!

ok... thanks for the reply.. but how does that help me?

the website says it connects thin clients to a linux server... i dont have a linux server.. i have a windows 2003 server... and i want to be able to access it from linux using RDP

My bad. I was in the wrong frame of mind when I read your first post.

The distro is entirely up to you. It doesn't really matter from a functionality point of view as pretty much all distros have the same software available. If you like Debian, use it (I would).

As far as how to set it up, I've never actually been in the situation you're looking for, but I'd probably do something like setting up the users and putting the command to start rdesktop to the right server in their .Xsession. Then just have them log in through kdm (or gdm or whatever).

i guessed it wouldn't matter too much with what dist is used.. just wanted to check...


the instructions in the article i read say they used red hat and twm with a customized menu to remove all other features/programs... and basically when the system started up it would auto login to linux and then load up rdesktop, so basically you are presented with a windows desktop straight away.

my thoughts were i could use debian and get gdm or kdm to auto login then hopefully load up a light WM that i can customize the menu's so the users can't do anything else... then load up rdesktop to connect to the correct terminal server.

only thing is i'm not 100% sure on how to do it all... i can get debian and x and all the programs setup.. thats no problem...

but setting auto login and getting rdesktop to run at startup is where i'm a little caught out (i could prolly work it out but thought it'd be easier to ask)

then when i've done all this on one machine i'm going to simply ghost the machine as they are all identical systems

Try this !

http://pxes.sourceforge.net/

/darktux

looks interesting... i might check it out

ok PXES does exactly what i want... just i dont want to have to enter in the server details every time and i'd rather run off the hard drive then the cd