[plug] Helpers wanted - Netbooting Installations

[Bernard Blackham]

On Wed, May 26, 2004 at 01:59:07PM +0800, Ian Kent wrote:
> > I'm after people who have had some experience in getting their
> > favourite (or least favourite :) distribution to install through
> > netbooting. Debian I can do; the others are Fedora, SuSE, Mandrake
> > and Gentoo. If you've done it before and willing to help do it
> > again, could you please let me know.
> 
> You don't mean booting from LAN card PROM do you?

Well, that's what I'm emulating, without actually having to burn it
to a PROM.

> > As part of the Installfest preparations, I've been looking at
> > setting up a netboot installation setup where:
> > 
> >  1. you drop a floppy/CD-ROM into a machine
> 
> Done this for RH 7.1 and 7.3.

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. This floppy/CD-ROM is a generic boot
image that only has a bunch of network drivers that GRUB uses to
netboot. It is the equivalent of the boot PROM on a network card,
but for all the supported network cards and not burned into the
card. It's not tied to any particular distribution.

> Do you want a canned 15-20 minute LAN based install as well. If this will 
> mean decisions regarding disk partitions, net config etc. for the 
> customisation scripting.

If you're willing to set it up, we can provide the option in the
installation menu (eg, the choice between a normal RH/Fedora install
and a preconfigured kickstart installation).

> >  2. It boots to a GRUB menu that asks you to select your network
> >     card/driver (one of GRUB's drivers)
> 
> Mmm ... have to think about it.

These bits (1)-(4) I've all taken care of. The distribution-specific
stuff starts from (5).

Tell me if I'm still not making any sense :)

Bernard.