[b]PXE diskless workstation w Knoppix ?[/b]

UY · 07-29-2003, 07:57 PM

can we talk about using Knoppix totally diskless - no Harddisk no CDROM drive, just boot from LAN and PXE BIOS?

Would be really nice and practically useful.

I look forward to this possibility because Knoppix already achieved a installation free CDROM boot ussage. Just another smaller step further, we can have a robust diskless LAN environment with a file server or NAS serving the user data as well as copy of Knoppix ISO image.

Clients free of harddisk are very much mantainence free. Especially against windows virus risks. CDROM is a compromise, because there is still a rotation optical disk device that can fail, or gets disc scratched.

Currently some BIOS have function to boot either PXE or NetBIOS type BBS, would be really practical and useful if someone with the skill can tell us how to make Knoppix boot up over LAN.

Cheers!

**Stephen** · 07-29-2003, 08:21 PM

It can already be done you should search the forum and look at the docs.

**aay** · 07-29-2003, 09:19 PM

Yep, it's already done. Check this link out.

Also you might want to look at ClusterKnoppix. It to has the terminal server, but with the added benefit of an OpenMosix Kernel for clustering. Also, there is an easy screen shot setup howto in the ClusterKnoppix docs page. The part regarding the setup of the Terminal Server is the same for the regular Knoppix package.

**stonent** · 08-03-2003, 06:40 PM

I was using Knoppix + PXE since it first came out. I used it to clone hard drives (Dell Optiplex, Precision, Dimension systems) so that I would not have to pay license fees for Norton Ghost. (Yes the PC's were running licensed Windows) It was also then that I learned the correct pronunciation of Knoppix "Cuh-no-pix" from a co-worker that grew up in Germany.

UY · 08-05-2003, 07:23 PM

Cool! Exactly what I wanted to hear!

Now need to learn how to get all that working correctly hands-on.

I have in mind to get M810DLU v7.5C motherboards with SiS 740/962L chipset, as clients stations, and a better machine as server, then try to construct a diskless LAN environment.

When this thing work OK, we can ditch Microsoft Windows!

**stonent** · 08-05-2003, 09:33 PM

Another thing is you can use etherboot from http://www.rom-o.matic.net . You can make a bootable floppy that initializes the network card and boots from the network (for cards without boot roms). You could even mount the floppy inside the computer so that users can't eject the floppy.