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Installing linux over a network?

J

JackOfHearts

Senior member
I have an old desktop and an old laptop, and I would like to put linux on both. Both systems do not have cd roms. How would I go about getting linux on these boxes via my network.
 
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or (I'm assuming now) talking about a desktop install using the "network" methods? IE Text

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Basically you are looking at having a TFTP server hosting images to deploy on your machines. Or you can do a network install which gets the minimal OS up and running from a floppy disk, where you can download other portions of the OS from the repositories.
 
The only Linux distribution that I know of that supports floppy install is going to be Debian. I never tried it myself and Debian isn't generally to easy for new linux users, but it's a good distro.

You can get the installation media at
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/current//images/

And the Debian installation manual is http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/index.html with directions on how to make the diskettes and such.

Good Luck.

Alternatively the easy method is to get Linux installed on one machine, then boot both machines up with a knoppix cdrom or tomsrtbt disk and use netcat and tar to copy the OS from one system to another. Then you have to edit /etc/fstab, /etc/hostname and some other items to setup the 2nd machine.

Also there are ways to install using bootable USB drives and such, but you bios has to support them.


 
Suse has one (at least had one..). I remember booting some floppies for it a while ago and being able to install over ftp, but not sure about it now. Go with Debian's net install.
 
I wouldn't say the only distro is debian. I can think of a ton of distros that you could do a floppy install with. Its just that debian is the only well documented one (well that and gentoo).
 
but gentoo is well documented in everything pretty much. I credit running Gentoo for a long time with learning the ins and outs of linux.

my only problem is maintainance. I did a "patch monday" this week. my 3 debian servers took 5 mins (no reboot). My 2 Ubuntu were a bit longer and one reboot (new kernel). My 2 Gentoo boxes are still compiling updates as of EOB yesterday (slower machines, P3 500ish).
 
I know the real Gentooian wouldn't ask this, but for larger packages couldn't you just download the prebuilt packages for your arch? Unless your compile flags are doing something different, your compiled application shouldn't be much different from someone else doing the same thing before you.
 
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