Re: diskless win95 boot

[Peter Debus <pdebus@turing.une.edu.au>]

I am in the middle of a similar project. I have not come accross
such a FAQ or HOWTO, but documents worth looking at that detail
similar setups are the Remote-Boot mini HOWTO in the linux
distrubution and Win95 server setup information in M$ on-line
knowledge base.

A web search on diskless Windows 95 should also turn up some
interesting articles.

The INSTALL file in the betboot distribution covers netboot
specific details for creating your boot image and bootrom
image. Also read the mknbi-dos man page, also part of netboot.

There is a problem however that needs to be resolved. Most remote 
boot setups currently detailed either use the PCs local disk or also
use a Novell server.

The problem is if you intend only to use Linux,
Samba and diskless PC, you need to use Microsofts real mode TCP/IP stack
to retrieve the rest of the Win95 boot image, which occurs after netboot
retrieves the initial boot image. However, MS real mode TCP/IP is incompatible
with Win95's protected mode TCP/IP which loads when Win95 proper starts.
Other setups booting from Novell are using real mode IPX/SPX which doesn't
have this problem. There may be a solution is you use IPX/SPX support under
Linux and use mars_nwe (netware simulator) under Linux,
at least initially to get Win95 booted, then switch over to Samba and TCP/IP
once Win95 has booted. This is just my initial thoughts on the subject, I am
yet to investigate fully.

Peter Debus


> 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> 	I am looking for information in how to setup either
> Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD as the boot server to remote boot of Win95
> or NT  to a diskless PC using netboot.
> 
> 	Is there a FAQ or doc or mails related to this ?
> 
> 	Thanks.
> 
> 	Fran 
> 	
>