these instructions describe how to create a basic ltsp system where all the applications are running locally with an anonymous login, using gdm, for i386 hardware. non-anonymous login with ldap or some other authentiation mechanism with writeable home directories is definitely possible, but not described here. and of course, you could probably use kdm insead of gdm, with a few changes. install the ltsp-server package: apt-get install ltsp-server build the client environment: ltsp-build-client install a desktop environment: chroot /opt/ltsp/i386 tasksel install desktop (alternately: chroot /opt/ltsp/i386 apt-get install gdm ) add an anonymous user for autologin: chroot /opt/ltsp/i386 adduser --disabled-password --gecos ,,, autologin (note: you may want to ensure a specific --uid and --gid, too) make /home and /var/lib/gdm writeable: echo 'copy_dirs="$copy_dirs /home"' >> /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/default/ltsp-client-setup echo 'rw_dirs="$rw_dirs /var/lib/gdm"' >> /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/default/ltsp-client-setup to /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/gdm/gdm.conf, add the following lines in the daemon section, like so: [daemon] AutomaticLoginEnable=true AutomaticLogin=autologin TimedLoginEnable=true TimedLogin=autologin TimedLoginDelay=30