Re: Pocket Adaptor support?

[Richard Gooch <Richard.Gooch@atnf.CSIRO.AU>]

markus@infoscape.com writes:
> --pgp-sign-Multipart_Wed_Aug_12_16:54:25_1998-1
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> Richard Gooch writes:
>  >   Hi, all. Recently I asked about network booting via a PCMCIA
>  > EtherNet card. In my quest for a solution, I'm also wondering about
>  > booting from one of those pocket adaptors (the ones that plug into the
>  > parallel port). Would that be easier to support than PCMCIA?
>  > 
>  > Once again, I'd be quite happy to be able to stick in a floppy disc to
>  > a laptop and have it boot into the BOOTP client and download the
>  > kernel and compressed root FS from a server.
>  > 
>  > Is this something I can ever expect to see? :-)
> 
> Hmm, it should not be incredibly to write a PLIP adapter for
> etherboot. Admittedly, this is a pretty strange idea, but it is
> probably the easiest way to bootstrap a Linux kernel onto a
> CD-ROM-less laptop.

This touches on two issues. Firstly, actual booting via the parport
(be it PLIP or an EtherNet pocket adaptor). The second is bandwidth
issues. Can someone tell me what the bandwidth of one of these parport
EtherNet adaptors is? PLIP bandwidth is quite low: only 50 kBytes/sec
at best.

				Regards,

					Richard....