Is it common in the Unix/Linux environment to install compute intensive applications on a Server system and have the client machines download the executables into memory at runtime to run locally? This model seems taxing to the network, and as I understand, has been largely abandoned in the Windows environment in favor of "lite" client side apps or web interfaces which allow the majority of actual computing to stay local on the server. I am curious whether there is a substantial difference in philosophy on the Unix platform, because I am seeing a fairly experienced Unix administrator set up his office that way.

Thanks.