I've been running a small business network on about 16 linux machines and 1 mswindows machine since 1995.
At that time I found NIS' special /etc/passwd entries to be a great aggravation. Ordinary passwd utilities, like adduser, would choke on them. Perceiving a lack of server power, I set up a network of freestanding boxes, serving just a couple of applications and DNS. Although the weakness of linux networking made it a reasonable choice, it was an inelegant and tedious solution with regard to administration. This with a stable and benign user base of office workers. Definitely serve the home directories. Putting apps on clients is low maintainance. Now I would look for other solutions than NIS, as I don't need another abstraction layer of user groupings. It doesn't sound like you need it either. I hear that Staroffice is going to be a quartered stuck pig. The one monolithic program is going to be split into separate tasks. I have found SO to be agreeable to people only familiar with MS Word. Win95 and Win98 have each been more trouble on one machine than the rest of the clients combined. The only reasons to go with mswindows are application compatibility and accumulated expertise. rob Live the dream.
