> I'm trying to use three Compaq Deskpro 4000 as diskless clients
> with LTSP 3 and a rom-o-matic tlan boot disk. One of the DCs runs

I am glad to hear that you are able to use the tlan Etherboot driver I
wrote.  

> The only hardware difference I know of between the DCs is that
> the good one has a 200MHz processor while the sluggish ones have
> 133MHz processors. At first I thought this could be the reason.
> Then I compared boot messages from one machine to the next. I
> noticed that the fast box's NIC was configured for FULL_DUPLEX
> and the slow machines were using HALF_DUPLEX.  Could this be the
> reason for the slow graphics?

It's been a while since I used a tlan card.  Does the revision number
still display when Etherboot loads?  If they are different revisions it
is possible that a different reset is necessary as Etherboot exits.

Half-Duplex could certainly a cause the slowness but only if the hub or
switch is connected at Full duplex.  What does Etherboot report as it
loads on those clients?  Full or half Duplex?

> I want to force the NIC to use FULL_DUPLEX. What's the easiest
> way to test this out?
> 
> I built a kernel and tried using mkelf-linux like this:
> 
> mkelf-linux --ip=dhcp --append="ether=0,0,0x0C,0x01,eth0"
> --output=/tftpboot/lts/compaq3.nb --rootdir=/opt/ltsp/i386/
> bzImage

The easiest way to do this is to use the init scripts from ltsp.org.
Once you get a kernel that will work via Etherboot then look at how to
change the options.

> "  The following lines in the /etc/dhcpd.conf file should do the
> trick:
> 
>         option option-128     e4:45:74:68:00:00;
>         option option-129     "NIC=ne IO=0x300";

Ken, if you are reading - How does this work again?  I tried to explain
it to some one the other day but became confused.  I believe that option
128 is a Hex representation that Etherboot understands to mean that
there are some options that it should pass to the kernel.  Option 129
are those options.

> I'm a bit confused on these option lines. Is option-128 a
> replacement for the "hardware ethernet" setting for the MAC
> address of the client's NIC?

No, see above.

> option-129 looks like it would be something like "NIC=tlan ..."
> What words are reserved for setting the duplex ... DUPLEX=full?
> Can I set duplex from within the dhcpd.conf file?

Yes, NIC=tlan ... should work. ;-)  I have no idea what should come
after it though.

Tim
 



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