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On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:55:35 -0400 |
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Randy Barlow <randy@×××××××××××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- |
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> Hash: SHA1 |
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> |
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> Dan Farrell wrote: |
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> > Sounds like a fun project. Have you considered trying to get it to |
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> > run without a har drive at all? I bet a server could provide NFS |
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> > many times faster than the hard drive... |
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> |
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> Yeah, old hardware is fun to tinker with :) I got this machine for |
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> free from my roommate so I figure what the heck, let's put Gentoo on |
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> it! That does sound like a cool idea - hadn't thought of trying NFS. |
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> How would one do something like that? I imagine you still need a |
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> harddrive in there to get the boot process going (to start up grub) |
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> and then you could configure grub to do the rest of the NFS stuff? |
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> This box doesn't offer anything else like PXE, booting from USB. It |
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> doesn't even have a CD-ROM or a floppy. Just a hard drive! |
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> |
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> - -- |
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> Randy Barlow |
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> http://electronsweatshop.com |
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> |
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First off I wanted to point out that this looks like a Pentium-class |
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processor, not 386 or 486. While I'm sure it will happily act like a |
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{3|4}86, it will also probably happily work as a pentium-mmx. I have |
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never put gentoo on a 486 but I know it will work on a pentium farily |
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well. |
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If you cannot net-boot with PXE, you'll need to boot from something; I |
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guess the hard drive is the only choice. All you'll need on the hard |
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drive is grub, the kernel, and, optionally, any initial ramdisks or |
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anything you require, or splash images, etc -- in short, the contents |
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of the boot partition, and no more. |
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Then you can create a directory for the installation on an NFS-capable |
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server somewhere, and unzip the stage3, and chroot. You should be able |
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to build for a pentium-type machine on any modern system, as long as it |
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has 32-bit support. |
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The next step is to configure the kernel to be able to automatically |
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configure IP networking at boot time, and to allow the root fs on NFS, |
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both in their respective categories in menuconfig. There is also a |
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netboot.txt (i think...) file in the kernel Documentation that can |
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explain the command-line syntax for specifying that the kernel boot |
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with an NFS root and configure IP networking at boot time. |
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Finally, you build the kernel, and the rest of the system, and then |
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stick grub and the kernel image on the hard drive and you should be |
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good to go! |
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Your NFS server will have to provide the filesystem, so you'll have to |
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set up an NFS file share. That's easy. Since you can't net-boot (that |
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is, recieve kernel and such with TFTP through the PXE stuff) you won't |
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need a TFTP server. You can use a static IP address, but if not, |
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you'll need a dhcp server. |
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If you want more help with net booting, just say so. Ive done it |
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several times now. |
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Another nice thing about this configuration is that as long as the NFS |
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server can execute the same code as the diskless client (that is the |
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processor in the server is more capable and not less), then you can |
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build the system, and any packages thereafter, on the server and not on |
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your super-slow off-brand pseudo-pentium ; ) I don't think i need to |
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tell you how much nicer that will be for you. |
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Best of luck, |
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Dan |
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-- |
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