Hi Dave, I'm not LTSP guru just yet so someone correct me if I'm wrong.
An option you have if you don't want to add a Boot ROM to the NIC or use a PXE NIC is to use a boot floppy. Most old machines you are talking about would come with a floppy drive. A pre-existing floppy drive and a pre-existing network card is cheaper than a new CDROM/PXE NIC. Here's what it looks like: http://www.hosef.org/gallery2/v/exhibitions/dscf0253.jpg.html With some instructions: http://www.hosef.org/wiki/Testing_the_client_--_preparing_a_boot_floppy http://www.hosef.org/wiki/CreateEtherBootDisk So yes. I'm not sure if you've considered that option. :P Mahalo, Julian --- Dave Burns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Good point, but the LSTP stuff has to work with older > hardware, I'm not sure > we're improving things if we use up 700MB of RAM with disk > image. > > The reason this idea appealed to me was that a while back PXE > NICs weren't > all that common so when we were setting up a lab we had to put > in several > new NICs. A CD is cheaper than a NIC, but a CD drive is not. > But lots of the > out-tossed computers we were looking at had CD drives already. > Not so many > had 1GB+ of RAM. > > I guess if all you want to do is run a thin client with a > cheap NIC, you > could use the CD (or memory stick) just to boot & then act > like the other > net-booted clients. No big advantage, but a little extra > flexibility (at the > cost of extra complexity). > > Dave > > > Boot, fetch the entire filesystem into memory, write the > precious > > parts back as needed (config changes, etc). > > > > > _______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > http://lists.hosef.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luau >
