Desktop Linux customization?

Question

linux

Good afternoon, dear experts!
There is a network of the enterprise from 30 machines. Users mainly work on the terminal server (1C). On local machines, only mail, office and some non-trivial programs are used.
I want to transfer all the work to the terminal server, and install Linux on client machines. In turn, I want to customize the client OS in this way: The user turns on the computer, enters the password from the local user, gets to the "desktop", there are 2 icons on the desktop, a connection to the terminal server and an icon with Wi-Fi and VPN connection. All. There shouldn't be anything else. No access to local directories, no other programs.
What tools can create such an image? The idea is this: configure the image once and install it on client machines. During installation, create a local user and configure the RDP and VPN connection.
There is not much experience in deploying linux, so the priority of the wizard (next-next-done) or tools with detailed documentation.

Answer 1

You are making the mistake of throwing away the available capacities and as a result you will be forced to increase the capacities on the RDP server as well.
Printing - what kind of printer do you have? USB/network?
In the case of USB, you will have problems, as well as a scanner, etc. iron.
We will have to work out a deployment and management system for all this economy - chef/ansible/etc.
But ideally, organizing PXE boot of workstations immediately removes many problems with system maintenance/updating.
Well, and most importantly, do not rush into all serious - first test everything on a couple of jobs, in real conditions and be prepared to meet huge resistance and "sabotage" from employees.
I don't know your motives ;)

Answer 2

For Debian and derivatives - preseed
For RHEL and derivatives - kickstart
The contents of the default home directory can be set in /etc/skel, so you can set up the necessary environment and throw all the settings there.
The preseed documentation is far from ideal, in my opinion (I don't know about kickstart). I never heard of the master.

Answer 3

What software is used except for 1s? If they use microsoft office, they will hate you for installing open office. And in general, they will hate you for installing Linux, you will constantly run around and explain to everyone how to do things that are trivial in your opinion.
+ if they find 0 day in Linux, then you will be tired of reinstalling everything, because you can’t just take and update Linux, because Linux updates almost always break something.
Ordinary office users are VERY sensitive to changing environments and their productivity and quality of work will decrease due to Linux. because of you, then they will start complaining about the fact that they do not like Linux and you will be extreme.
My advice is NOT to install Linux unless your boss pays you double your salary for it.
And convince your bosses that you don’t need to change windows to linux on desktops in the office, because you get sick of it and in a couple of years you will return windows, but by then you may already be fired because there are too many complaints about Linux.
Linux on the desktop for office workers has not taken root anywhere, and where it has not yet been changed back to windows, people hate those who decide to install linux, then they are fired and take the administrator's windows to return it as it was.
Even many programmers with the advent of linux subsytem for windows left Linux, because Linux is unnecessary problems on the desktop. When, for example, the printer may not print, the scanner may not scan, and stuff like that.
Think before it's too late.

Answer 4

Take tinycore , throw in the necessary software and settings, and at the output you get a system that weighs 10-15 megabytes without much. It is very convenient to ship this one even by pxe. It works extremely fast, there are no problems with installing software. it is simply thrown as a single file into a folder and, accordingly, it is also easy to update / change / delete it and it will not affect anything else.

Answer 5

"Friendly" distributions don't have any wizards - they are the product of the "masters" :) Unfriendly distributions like gentoo have image generation tools, although I haven't worked with them yet.
There is a lot of documentation for gentoo and gentoo-like systems, but the entry threshold - I will say right away - is very high. You need to know everything. You need to do almost everything yourself - except you didn’t have to rebuild the bucket yourself.
UPD: You can try to just set up one wheelbarrow, and then clone it with subsequent editing of the configs.

Answer 6

As an option, just a guess, how difficult and possibly I can’t say, but I think that “everything can be done” =)
Look in the direction of the so-called. LiveCD and how to "build" it - that if you prepare and customize one machine, assemble a "LiveCD" from it and already multiply it on machines (it would also be nice to prohibit changing it, as on CD / DVD media, then all glitches / viruses / hacks are solved with the "reset" button) ...

Answer 7

The option with PXE was announced above.
Since the user does not need anything other than RDP to the 1C server, then simply the stations can be made without disk ones and do not take a steam bath. Make downloading over the network, which will give many advantages, from centralized management to the use of outdated hardware on workstations. But as mentioned above, the problem may be with printers and scanners.
Once to pass this way and will work not one year! In the future, select the hardware accordingly network and there will be no problems.
here are some links where you can start:
it-advisor.ru
https://sourceforge.net/projects/thinstation/
https://thinstation.github.io/thinstation/