Running Linux system without harddisk


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He stated that he wants to boot the image from a network share...

For this i suppose you would need to use PXE Network boot or something..

Im afraid I dont know much about it but try googling?

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Well basically you need to setup a linux server running dhcp which is configured for pxe booting. You will need to have tftp and xinetd installed.

check out these links

http://www.linux-sxs.org/internet_serving/pxeboot.html

http://linux.duke.edu/doc/pxe-Quick-Start.ptml

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/...4/c00257674.pdf (quite an indepth guide from hp)

http://www.digitalpeer.com/id/linuxnfs

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-settin...emote-boot.html

I've done this once before and it can be a bit fiddly to get going but when it works it's very handy! good luck :)

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The only server available on the network is a Windows server. DHCP is served by my gateway... does that mean I need to have the server handle DHCP? That's quite cumbersome.

You can run it off a cd/dvd no problem.
I'm aware of that. But the whole point of this is quiet operation... ;)
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The only server available on the network is a Windows server. DHCP is served by my gateway... does that mean I need to have the server handle DHCP? That's quite cumbersome.

I'm aware of that. But the whole point of this is quiet operation... ;)

usb memory stick is the way to go then

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The only server available on the network is a Windows server. DHCP is served by my gateway... does that mean I need to have the server handle DHCP? That's quite cumbersome.

I'm aware of that. But the whole point of this is quiet operation... ;)

Ok well in that case try these sites

http://tftpd32.jounin.net/

http://unattended.sourceforge.net/pxe-win2k.html

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/w2k3/W2K3_RIS.htm

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To boot PXE you need to have the dhcp server hand out info, ie where the PXE image is etc... If you do not have control of the dhcp server, or it does not support these options -- then your not going to be able to boot PXE.

PXE uses dhcp to find the where the TFTP server is located so it can load the OS it will boot. So you need both a DHCP server that supports handing out the options you need, an a tftp server.

You can not boot pxe off a NFS, but sure could have a min boot image, that pulls the rest of the info from a NFS share.

If you want to use an alternative to PXE, then you could look into etherboot, ie gPXE I think they call it now.. Allows you to burn the bootloader onto the network card rom, or even into bios, etc.

http://www.etherboot.org/wiki/start

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Asus' Eee PCs don't use a hard drive, they use a flash drive instead.
Man, I need a PC that boots from the network, simple as that. Thank you BudMan, I think I get it now :) Awesome.
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