Re: Diskless Notebook

[Marty Connor <mdc@thinguin.org>]

On 1/12/2001 9:14 AM Steve_Marfisi@3com.com Steve_Marfisi@3com.com wrote:
>>Klaus Espenlaub wrote:
>>If you have a PCMCIA/PCCARD ethernet adapter, you need assistance from user
>>level programs in Linux, so getting those cards detected at boot time is 
>>pretty much impossible.

>Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to enable or allow the CardBus 
>NICs
>to support network boot on existing platforms - it is vendor dependent.  For
>this to happen, support must be implemented by the laptop vendor. Custom
>extensions to the (usually) Phoenix BIOS must be written on an individual 
>basis

>From a strict standpoint I guess you're right, but from a practical 
standpoint, if I can use a floppy or CD to get my laptop to a point where 
it will run disklessly, that might be sufficient.  Agreed that it lacks 
the pleasant state-lessness of network loading of the kernel, but if 
essentially the kernel is being used to get the hardware to a state where 
it can do NFS, perhaps that's good enough for some situations.

The elegance of statelessness is lost, but that may be a compromise that 
has to be made;  Since presumably a laptop has a hard drive, constraints 
are somewhat different in any case, and a carefully constructed lilo 
entry might yield machine that runs almost totally from network resources.

Some musings from an avid laptop user.

Regards,

Marty

---
    Try: http://rom-o-matic.net/ to make Etherboot images instantly.

   Name: Martin D. Connor
US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827; Cambridge, MA 02139; USA
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  Email: mdc@thinguin.org
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