CDRomless and Harddiskless clients...

[digitalunix]

I would like to ask a question. I have two more computer at home. I would like to boot them via my server. They dont have a CDRom or Harddisk, but only floppy diskdrives and also network cards. So is it possible these two poor clients to turn into a useful way??? I would like to boot with a diskette, which will just send the information that are needed to server and to get necessary packages from server...

I would be really glad if you could help me...

[firebyrd10]

Just as long as they have PXE bootable BIOS then yes you can.

Just start the Knoppix terminal server (in /etc/init.d if your running in text mode) then boot up the computers. Seems to work for most people but my BIOS doesn't support.

[johnb]

johnb
you can network boot from a floppy( rom-a-matic?) its a website, put in the necessary info and a floppy image for your network card will be downloadable. I havent tried it, because PXE works great. My laptop sony vaio laptop has booted a cluster of 11nodes without hard drives, floppies,cdrom,mouse,keyboard,monitor,ect. Just the ethernet cable going in...
good luck
johnb

[johnb]

I did a larger post here on setting-up diskless nodes:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2461&highlight=

johnb

[hplasm]

For reference, the Etherboot site is at http://rom-o-matic.net/.. (no!...)