I would have to say that the gui's response time for basic applications such as web browsing is a tough item to let go of. But, as much as I hate to say it, the integration between software (such as the synergy between MS office, ie, and the operating system) is something that just isn't matched yet on the desktop. Hopefully, someday soon, though.
Take a look at some of the white papers out there on creating images for beowulf clusters. You could use the same concept to deploy a standard installation to a bunch of workstations. You would have the same software on all the boxes without having to perform a special install on each one. You can choose whichever distro you want based on your business needs. And, you could also slim down the kernel (since you said some of these machines were older) to improve performance without having to rebuild it after each install.
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I would have to say that the gui's response time for basic applications such as web browsing is a tough item to let go of. But, as much as I hate to say it, the integration between software (such as the synergy between MS office, ie, and the operating system) is something that just isn't matched yet on the desktop. Hopefully, someday soon, though.
Take a look at some of the white papers out there on creating images for beowulf clusters. You could use the same concept to deploy a standard installation to a bunch of workstations. You would have the same software on all the boxes without having to perform a special install on each one. You can choose whichever distro you want based on your business needs. And, you could also slim down the kernel (since you said some of these machines were older) to improve performance without having to rebuild it after each install.