Quote Originally Posted by Forester View Post
Hi again,

Different (Dell) machines have different devices and these require different drivers and firmware. This probably accounts for why you have problems with your 710 and not with other machines.

Over the last few years, the drivers and the firmware they load at start up have been separated for copyright reasons. This probably accounts for why your 710 works with 6.0.1 but not with 6.4.4.

When you boot the Live CD, Linux is able to find the the right driver and the driver is able to find the right firmware but when you boot using PXE this fails for some reason. Does that sound reasonable so far ?

Can I ask if your PXE boot set up boots Knoppix or some other OS ? If you are booting Knoppix are you using the Knoppix 'terminal server' ?

I remember (vaguely now) using PXE boot and the tftpboot directory but in those days I was booting embedded Linux using some desktop Linux. I recently tried the Knoppix terminal server to boot PXE Knoppix, as it were. The server and client were the same Linux and I did not need to set up a tftpboot infrastructure. It some ways that might seem a daft thing to do.

If you are booting Knoppix using PXE then I suggest you try moving your tftpboot infrastructure to one side and try the Knoppix terminal server. That should boot /boot/vmlinuz from the running Knoppix (which you will find exactly the same kernel as you copied off the CD). I think this mounts /KNOPPIX over nfs and the rest, as they as, is Knoppix.

If you can't do that then you'll have to extend you tftpboot infrastructure to include the firmware for your 710. I think you'll find the driver is not a loadable module but it is already in the kernel. One way to find out what firmware you need is the boot the Live CD, open a console terminal and examine the output of dmesg. All the network drivers I have that load firmware actually report which file they have loaded from /lib/firmware.
- The info about drivers and firmware is very helpful. I have tried to install on a few more systems and across the board older systems install, newer ones don't. A dell 2850 works, a 2950 does not. A dell 1850 works, a 1950 does not...

- I am running a pxe server on a redhat machine, not a knoppix terminal server.

- I will try setting up a knoppix terminal server and booting from it next week.

- Thanks also for the tip on where to find the firmware info.

I'll follow up when I know more..

-MichaelC