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It ain't free but it ain't MS predatory pricing either. FTW Y/N?

Try PXES. I used it at a high school to netboot old desktops ( I think I used etherboot, with all nics embedded, so it didn't matter what nic was in the desktop), to download pxes, which would then connect to the X11 box to run all the applications. It features RDP, X11, NX, and others perhaps.Download here.

Try PXES. I used it at a high school to netboot old desktops ( I think I used etherboot, with all nics embedded, so it didn't matter what nic was in the desktop), to download pxes, which would then connect to the X11 box to run all the applications. It features RDP, X11, NX, and others perhaps.Download here.

Try PXES. I used it at a high school to netboot old desktops ( I think I used etherboot, with all nics embedded, so it didn't matter what nic was in the desktop), to download pxes, which would then connect to the X11 box to run all the applications. It features RDP, X11, NX, and others perhaps.Download here.

Whats your role in schools mate, tech/teach/support/other?

I'm a Network Manager myself, based in a school/college in Essex. Couldn't agree more with what you say about RM. We're currently in the process of ditching our RM servers, and the disgrace that is CC3! However, we're not moving to OSS or anything. In fact, we're pushing through a pure MS Terminal Services / thin client setup.

We did trial a linux (SuSE I think) solution, but backwards-compatability and integration with our existing network was something the company who offered the solution seemed unwilling to think about.

So, we're rolling our own solution. MS-based datacentre, full remote access for students and staff, 24/7. We're building the thin clients ourselves using our existing hardware and thinstation ( http://www.2x.com/pxes/ ), and new thin clients such as HP's T5520.

Microsoft licensing is the smallest part of my (sadly many) budgets; it accounts for barely 5% of my annual spend. It'd be more useful if Becta started to get manufacturers to provide decent hardware pricing to schools, since hardware is vastly more expensive than software.

2x (http://www.2x.com/) has several TS enhancing programs for load balancing, app publishing etc., as well as a good program for managing thin clients in a corporate environment, including linux based thin clients for those who want/need to use really inexpensive (i.e. old computers) as thin client terminals. I'll also second the thought of waiting for Longhorn, as the enhancements look might tasty and possibly enough to get by without any additions. Unfortunately the Longhorn enhancements don't seem to do a whole lot for the video performance - Citrix is still the only game in town if you want to use any sort of multi-media in a TSE environment.

Never used this but I have used some of there other products which seem pretty good. http://www.2x.com/applicationserver/citrix.htm/ Price seem pretty good too.

I agree -- $390 is too expensive for an extremely limited-functionality thin client. Especially one like this that locks you into Windows CE and IE. Blah. A better option, in my opinion, is to use cheap, old hardware (e.g. PIIs), get rid of everything but the network card, and net-boot PXES or similar Linux-based thin client software. This is a truly inexpensive, low-maintenance (no moving parts on the machine) option.

There is also a product by 2X Software called Application Server which handles the Published Applications side of things as well as the Load Balancing of Terminal Servers.

However they are still working on integrating the two, this should be added in the near future. The products target directly Citrix customer's base and are slowly implementing almost all if not totally all Citrix features and more at 1/10th of the cost.

There is also a product by 2X Software called Application Server which handles the Published Applications side of things as well as the Load Balancing of Terminal Servers.

However they are still working on integrating the two, this should be added in the near future. The products target directly Citrix customer's base and are slowly implementing almost all if not totally all Citrix features and more at 1/10th of the cost.

Haven't tried it, but PXES might be worth looking at. It can work with a variety of M$ and Linux/Unix terminal server clients. They have a proprietry server available but the client appears to be free. It's bootable from HDD, USB, CD, network etc and can be run on a diskless system. This article also discusses this topic...Skolelinux, which is designed for schools, appears to be a nice package with a thin-client option.

PXES is pretty much what you need. I've used it to boot right into NX client. Works great.

http://www.2x.com/pxes/

xfce just got donated a new server from 2x.com For less than 1600 dollars. 3000? gimme a break!