Need Linux on a bunch of computers quickly and easily

From: Jason Victor (jasonv118_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/17/03 

Date: 17 Sep 2003 09:02:15 -0700

Hello all.

I have a problem. I have fifteen kids with Windows laptops, and I need
all of them to be able to use Linux as a programming environment.
Basically, they need to be able to boot into Linux into some sort of
programming environment, work on stuff, save stuff, and then reboot
back into Windows. Partitioning is not an easy option... in this
situation it is too risky and impractical.

I considered VMWare. I could just have all of them install VMWare and
then I could set up a Linux "VMWare install" on my own machine and
simply give them the hard disk files. The problem with this is that it
is oppressively slow, and they might not all of machines capable of
running VMware at all. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether I could
get the funding to get 15 licenses of VMWare.

Off the top of my head, I can think of those "Bootable CD" distros and
the distros that install into a FAT partition. Does anybody have any
suggestions? I'm searching for simplicity... say, a bootable CD with
IceWM, xterm and GCC or something, that can save files to a FAT or
NTFS partition.

Can anybody help me out with some ideas?

Thanks!

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