[solved] How to boot through lan?

Mizipzor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2005 Posts: 105

I got two computers, one of them is my girlfriend currently using. Its to old to even begin thinking about running windows so i installed linux on it. Problem is i installed Debian on it and now i want to switch to Gentoo.

The big problem is it doesnt have a cd device. I installed Debian on it by taking out the device from my main computer, putting it in there, install and then switch back. I would like a better solution for this run.

I created one of these live usb sticks, but then i realised that the motherboard doesnt support boot on USB. But it does have an entry in the boot menu called "LAN". The NIC is a PCI one (not built into the motherboard) but i was told that if its going to boot on the card it needs some PXE ROM thing, some ROM you put into it that the card use to boot. Anyone know more about how to boot through the NIC?

I have an old floppy drive lying around. I could put that into the box if im able to boot through that somehow. Anyone know how to do that? If its even possible.

Any help appreciated.

CPUFreak91 · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:04 pm Post subject:

Maybe you could put the hard drive into your computer with a CD drive and install gentoo on it (use genkernel or enable all the drivers for the slow computer's motherboard)?
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Mizipzor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2005 Posts: 105

If i were to move the hdd from one computer to the other i might as well move the cd device the other way instead. Something i wanted to avoid. Thanks for the tip anyway.

CPUFreak91 · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:16 pm Post subject:

Ah yes. I suppose moving the CD drive would be better :p.
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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
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timeBandit · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:28 pm Post subject:

How big is the hard drive? How much space is free, or, more to the point, how much could you make free if you had to?

Since you already have a working Linux system with a network connection, with enough room you could install Gentoo directly on that box while it's booted into Debian. In a pinch, you can do so with less than one gigabyte free, if you can leverage a more modern computer for the heavy lifting. Once you have a minimal Gentoo installation kick-started, you can remove Debian and finish the changeover.
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dmartinsca · Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:00 am Post subject:

Although what timeBandit suggested would probably be easier, if it's not an option then this might work for you:

A while ago I tried to do this to set up my desktop, booting it via PXE from my laptop. I came across a nice feature of KNOPPIX. It can automatically setup a terminal server for you which exports the entire knoppix cd via nfs and allows you to boot another computer from the knoppix cd across the network (using PXE). Lost yet?

I had considered setting up my gentoo install to do the same thing, but it honestly seemed like more work than it was worth. So, i used a knoppix 5 cd to boot my laptop, made sure the network connection was working then clicked on the penguin menu, choose services, then Start KNOPPIX Terminal Server. I just answered all the questions with the default setting. Next up, I set my BIOS on the computer I was going to install gentoo on to boot LAN first, unfortunately this didn't work. It's possible my old network card doesn't support this. If it boots up for you then you can continue a normal gentoo install from the knoppix cd. See at alt install guide for any differences from a install using the gentoo livecds: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml#doc_chap3

If your computer won't boot from the network, I came across a site called rom-o-matic. Apparently it creates etherboot rom images which you can write to a floppy. This allows you to do a network boot from a card that doesn't support PXE ... i think? Anyways, I choose rtl8139 for the first field, which one of the choices starting with rtl8139 doesn't seem to matter when you're booting from a floppy. It only makes a difference if you're going to put the image onto a ROM chip on your network card. So, basically, just pick the one for your network card. Most of the options look pretty close to the drivers used under linux..
For the second field, set it to Floppy bootable rom image. Click get rom, then write the image to a floppy as described on the rom-o-matic site. Now set the computer to boot from the floppy disk, and hopefully you'll see the knoppix boot screen within a few seconds.

Mizipzor · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jun 2005 Posts: 105

Although dmartinsca's suggestion was way cooler, I went with TimeBandit's idea and is currently installing Gentoo.

Thank you both anyway.