RPL vs PXE (was Re: Installing Linux (without CD/floppies))

Ken Chase math at velocet.ca
Tue Feb 18 07:33:27 PST 2003


On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 09:05:48AM -0500, Donald Becker's all...
> On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Mark Hahn wrote:
> 
> > > As long as your network cards' support PXE (most do nowadays), then it is
> > 
> > is that really true?  great if so!  I haven't looked, but tend to only
> > expect builtin eth to support PXE...
> > 
> 
> Almost all current, performance-oriented motherboards have built-in Fast
> Ethernet with PXE support in the BIOS Flash.
> 
> Most low-end Fast Ethernet cards have a socket but do not include a boot
> ROM.  It's difficult to find the correct Flash-ROM part, and you must
> still program them one by one.  It's easier and less expensive to just
> buy the slightly more expensive 3Com or Intel NICs with built-in Flash-ROMs.
> 
> No matter what installation you use, we recommend leaving the system set
> to PXE boot.

Many lower end boards include RPL now, which seems to be of the IBM
variety (not Novell). I've gotten linux to boot off a linux RPLD server -
has anyone gotten FreeBSD to do the same (off a linux RPLD server - RPLD
wont run on freebsd, and its nontrivial to tweak for freebsd servers).

/kc

> 
> -- 
> Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
> Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
> 410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Scyld Beowulf cluster system
> Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993
> 
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-- 
Ken Chase, math at velocet.ca  *  Velocet Communications Inc.  *  Toronto, CANADA 



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