[Beowulf] Problem while booting diskless node.

[Mark Hahn]

> tools, and it worked a bit better but then it couldn't execute bash scripts 
> such as rc.sysinit.

sounds like you should mount your full NFS root before rc.sysinit.
in fact, if you're really using an NFS root, there's no reason I know
of to prune things like bash and shared libraries out of it.  if you're
using an initrd, then yes, you need to think about static linking and busybox.

> As anybody ever encountered such problems and what should I do to solve it? 
> recompile the kernel of the node or of the server? change the distribution? 
> Are there any other simpler method to proceed than using PXE?

permit me to take a step back and summarize some basic booting alternatives:

0. PXE delivers kernel+initrd.  initrd includes scripts which mount the
    root fs over nfs.  code in the initrd itself needs to do busybox-like
    stuff, but would mount the full rootfs, pivot and exec init.

1. PXE delivers kernel, but potentially no initrd because kernel-level
    autoconfig mounts the full-blown root filesystem and exec's init.