NoMachine NX type software for Mac OS X?

[Hex Star]

So I found this article:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2002/02/08/netinfo.html which seems
quite interesting but it looks like it was written before Mac OS X Tiger was
released? Has the user home directory preference changed location in NetInfo
since the release of Tiger and if so where is it? If I enable file sharing
on the main desktop machine and set the home folder for users on the laptop
to the desktop machine (e.g. afp://ipaddresshere) making sure user
ids/groups are the same should this work as an alternative to relying on an
ldap server (thus allowing me to just have the same users created locally on
both machines while also allowing the laptop to see the user files stored on
the desktop machine)? Also, adding users with the same Name/Short Name as
the desktop machine should be sufficient for duplicating the user/group ids
right? Thanks! :)