computoman

Caveat: Use at your own risk. Though I use several versions of linux, I like to use Slackware on really old systems.  Generally those systems do not have cdrom and in some cases no usb. Slackare is so versatile that you can boot from just a floppy to install slackware via gpxe from the internet,  I did an install that way with 14.1 on a p1. Now to try this with slackware 14.2.  So far so good. You can do this on other versions of linux. To me one of the most amazing things is to install linux from the internet instead of using local media. Generally if you wanted to do an install of linux, from the net, you would need a dhcp server and an tftp server with special settings. Gpxe gets around all those limitations. Quite often I will start a internet based install from a local web server. Now that the internet is slightly more dependable we can do an install from the host linux distribution sites. Today I will show you how to do it with Slackware 14.2.  More I...

Openbsd is a nix cousin of Linux. Has the ability to run on lower end systems that are internet ready. (i.e. All CPUs compatible with the Intel 80486 or better, with Intel-compatible hardware floating point support should work). Here is a couple of pxeboot scripts where you can use the internet to install it even via a floppy. Two examples: (systems supported at http://ftp3.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.6/ ) version 5.4 - amd64   dhcp net0   kernel -n img http://static.netboot.me/memdisk-iso iso   initrd -n img http://ftp3.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.4/amd64/cd54.iso   boot img Version 5.6 - i386  dhcp net0   kernel -n img http://static.netboot.me/memdisk-iso iso   initrd -n img http://ftp3.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.6/i386/cd56.iso   boot img You will need to go to www.romomatic.org to create the boot media. Choose the most recent release. Then you will get the configuration page. Choose which media you w...

Been spending time looking at booting systems to the net to install linux operating systems. So far we have looked at Arch and Debian based systems. Both Fedora and Centos have pre-made iso's for network install. Centos: http://www.centos.org/download/ Fedora: http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora But if you want to roll your own, here are some scripts to look at: Fedora  #!ipxe   dhcp any   # Set source URI   set mirror http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/20     # Detect CPU architecture and calculate repository URI   set arch i386   set repo ${mirror}/Fedora/${arch}/os     # Start installer   kernel ${repo}/images/pxeboot/vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img repo=${repo}   initrd ${repo}/images/pxeboot/initrd.img   boot or   #!ipxe   dhcp any   # Set source URI   set mirror http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/18   ...

Quote from an unnamed blog: Quote: Probably going to get lambasted for this, but it is something to think about when judging a potential employee. Can a potential employee use what they have or do they need thousands of dollars just to do the simplest thing to get going. Here we will pit a confirmed Microsoft software only advocate versus someone who has at least some familiarity with linux or is willing to try something new and use the systems alloted to them. In each of two separate rooms on the desk is a Pentium II computer with 128 megs of ram, minimal graphics card, network connection, floppy drive and a 4 gig hard drive. This system will have access to the internet. Also on the desk, are two items. A brand new MSWindows 7 dvd install disk and a gpxe based floppy setup to install linux remotely via the network. The two potential techs are sent to each of the separate rooms to get their computer up and running plus send an email to predefined email address left on a piece o...