Netboot or Etherboot?

[Elledan]

Like the title says, which one is to be preferred?

I'll be using it for a bunch of X-terminals (with some old PCs as clients). From what I can tell, there's very little difference between Netboot and Etherboot.

Any help would be welcome

 

[jhu]

aren't they the same thing? or are they programs?

 

[Elledan]

<< aren't they the same thing? or are they programs? >>


http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/
http://netboot.sourceforge.net/

 

[jhu]

i don't quite understand what these programs do. does is store the kernel in the rom? couldn't you do the same thing using a boot disk that loads a kernel that nfs mounts from a server?

 

[Elledan]

<< i don't quite understand what these programs do. does is store the kernel in the rom? couldn't you do the same thing using a boot disk that loads a kernel that nfs mounts from a server? >>


Both allow you to configure the necessary components to set up so-called 'diskless booting'. Hereby the filesystem and kernel is retrieved from a server.

 

[Elledan]

^ ^

I could use some help here...

 

[jhu]

huh, basically it turns your computer into a good little unix machine kinda like my sparcstation.

 

[bubba]

I want to do this to, however, I would like to boot off of a floppy. The problem is I would like all apps to run locally, not on the server they are booting off of. Most of the sites I have seen for this run their processes on the server and just display back to the machine you booted.

Any ideas on that?

 

[Elledan]

bubba, it might be possible what you propose. I suggest you try reading the documentation for Netboot and Etherboot (linked in an earlier post) first, and see whether it's possible

--

So, is anyone going to tell me which of these two programs is to be preferred over another, or will I just have to flip a coin?

 

[DaHitman]

Dont forget to check out what they are doing over at the Linux Terminal Server Project... its right down your alley.

http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html

 

[Elledan]

<< Dont forget to check out what they are doing over at the Linux Terminal Server Project... its right down your alley.

http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html >>


You know, that sounds like a much easier solution

Thanks for the link!

 

[bubba]

Yes, but the K12ltsp all runs off the server, unless you run a very inelegant rsh to run things on the local box. All I want is to be able to boot a machine off of a floppy and run programs locally. I can't seem to find a site that helps with this.

 

[jhu]

what kinds of programs are you running locally? do you want it to all fit on the floppy or are you going to have a hard disk?

 

[bubba]

I want to run *everything* locally.

We have 2 labs, one WinXP, one Linux. I would like to have a boot floppy that would be able to boot the WinXP boxes off of the server in case of overflow from the Linux Lab. Now this would have to be without touching the WindowsXP box's disk. I do *not* want to dual boot, that would be an administration nightmare.