Open Stack

Hi,

I am working on what seems to be a rather unusual use-case for
OpenStack.  This fall we would like to give every 1st year
electrical/computer engineering student a VM (ubuntu 12.04) on 512
core cluster.  On this instance they will run the software required to
do their assignments, print, etc.  I am only familiar with vnc through
an ssh tunnel and the performance is less than ideal.  The replacement
must have a client that can run on linux, max and windows, have better
performance than vnc and be secure.

Does anyone have any familiarity with some of the other options?  I am
currently considering FreeNX, and XRDP.

I looked at several other options including:
2X TerminalServer - In the download section it does not list a client
for anything other than windows (not sure if the NoMachine client
would work?)
LTSP - A good client for windows/mac seems hard to come by
XDMCP - Again, it seems as though the client might be a problem.


Any advice, or tips, corrections are welcome.

Thank you!