> I'm working with a 1.1 Ghz Celeron on the client, a 500 Mhz Pentium on the > server, and a 10/100 ethernet. I finally was able to get my system (the one > without floppies or CD-ROMs) to do a netboot from a USB Zip disk. It found > the server right away and started downloading the kernel. That was at 4 am. > It's now noon, and it's still downloading. The line reads: > > "Loading 192.168.100.1:/tftpboot/kernel" and there's a row of dots after that > that grows gradually. Right now there's a row of 16 dots. > > 8 hours seems a bit long to do a netboot.... > > How can I speed this up?
Actually--and you probably realized this--you're not downloading the kernel. Most likely yout tftp service on the server is not running or not configured, and those dots are merely indicating repeated attempts to contact a tftp server. A kernel download takes, literally, no more than two seconds. It's a 600kb file! You have to check your configuration. Either tftpd is not running, is misconfigured, or (most likely) your firewall is blocking tftp services. A standard firewall will rightly block the tftp port, but LTSP needs are unique. > Also: This is an ASUS TUSI-M mobo, with an SIS900 NIC chip. I understand this > board can boot using PXE. Is this the right process to add PXE? > > 1) Copy BIOS image using AFLASH.EXE (and back it up). > 2) Download PXE ROM image from ROM-O-MATIC > 3) Use CBROM or AwardMod to add the PXE image to the original BIOS image > 4) Use AFLASH.EXE to flash the board BIOS with the new BIOS image w/ PXE PXE was designed to ease care and feeding of terminals that boot remotely. My understanding of PXE (and it may be mistaken) is that it's an execution environment present in ROM on a network card, and that it understands enough about DHCP and TFTP to download its own PXE-compliant image and run it, and that all configuration of the PXE bootroms is done by a config file on the server. In other words, there's no boot prom involved, and no kernel/boot image is ever stored anywhere on a PXE client. Thus you don't add it to the bios. At least that's my understanding, but I don't use PXE. Although some evidence in support of this understanding may be that many PXE NICs do not have boot prom sockets. Thus what you need to do is put your PXE rom image on your SERVER, and somehow set up that server to respond to requests from PXE clients by handing them that PXE rom image. The pxe rom image in turn will be loaded into memory on the client, and then will take over and start looking for a kernel, like normal. However, what you describe might also work (I don't know), but I wouldn't count on it. It's much easier to set things up the standard way, anyway. Check http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/pxe/pxe-ltsp-recipe.txt There are additonal files in http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/pxe/ that it seems you'll need. It looks like pxe will take a bit of work to set up, but it'll be a lot less work (and less violent) than reflashing all your bioses! I think the whole point of PXE in the first place was to avoid having to burn EEPROMS for all your network cards (a problem when you have hundreds of clients) or flash crazy bioses. -- Francis Avila ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.openprojects.net
