Xwindows and servers

[James Ervin <james kites org>]

I need a little help from those of you who are savy with X servers and
clients.  

I am trying to set up a network for a nonprofit school and am using Linux
(this is a favor).  We have a pentium box (server) and a collection of 486
boxes (workstations).  The staff has no clue about computers, so we are
setting them up a linux network running fvwm2 (tricky yes we are).  

Here is what happens:  all apps are run on the main pentium server.  When I
say server, I mean this box.  The client (when I say client I mean the
remote PC, I know this is not the right terms for X) starts x automatically
because it is set to boot to run level 5.  The workstation automatically
performs an rlogin to the server and sets a display variable to export the
display of anything run on the server to the workstatoin.

The server is running xdm and the pc or client (or x server) has the main
server's address in the xhosts files.  We then have icons on the fvwm2 menu
that run rsh applications on the main server that export the display to the
pc clients.  This works.  This actually works very well. 

We can run all the KDE tools and all the other items that we want to run.
Since the app is running on the main server, printing is a non issue.  File
storage is on the main server.  All this happens will no user action or
knowledge.

Problem:  The PC workstation still needs to start a window manager of some
kind in order to accept the display export from the Pentium server.  Is
there a way to run fvwm2 off of the pentium server?  Is there a way to get
the xserver running and the rsh fvwm2 from the main server?  I have tried,
but I get the error "another window manager is running".  I have tried
killing fvwm2, but x dies as well.  

I have though of an nfs mount to a dir where the fvwm2 files are and
running them from there (this gives me control over the appearance of all
the desktops and icons). But I would rather have a simpler solution than
nfs mounts.

The idea is to keep this simple and idiot proof, they will get a
calculator, a calander program a spreadsheet program, a wordprocessor and
an email program.  Nothing else and no way to get a shell out of the box.  

If something goes wrong, reboot and start again.  

BTW:  There was a copy of WP for Linux floating around for version 6.  Is
this a full version with no timeouts?  I still need a free wordprocessing
app for the school and have found little that can do the job.  I have
applixwords, but that is not free and staroffice is a little heavy for the
nature of the equipment.  Any ideas?

Thanks for the input.

end

James Ervin
City of Bedford Network Administration
admin ci bedford va us
(540)586-7156