A user authenticates to the NOS on an existing NOS smart machine. At the user's disposal is the local machine and the NOS services. The Distributed file system contains the user's home directory with the user's preferences. Regardless on which machine the user authenticates, the user's home and customizations are present. The user can easily find a vast number of network resources. All resources appear local to the user, but in reality, they are scattered through out the network. The user is very happy to find his favorite APL-based calculator still available for a quick matrix inversion. The user logs off the system when finished.