I’m also a fan of science fiction-like solutions but only in the “oh that would be so cool!” sense, not as a viable solution to the current problem of what could be a runaway greenhouse heating cycle that turns earth into “Venus the 2nd”. Keep dreaming, though because what seemed like science fiction just decades ago is becoming reality today and as a future method to regulate earths temperature it seems at least worth a look.
To summarise: use a terminal server system if you can, using a desktop for the end user that can be made to behave like windows (or another concept that works for your demography), and have the whole setup in a NixOS configuration that you manage in git.
I see that https://github.com/ltsp/ltsp is still going strong.