<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> I have one 3Com 3C905B NIC with a bootrom from disklessworkstations, and it works just great. It's installed in a Pentium-166 w/ 32MB DRAM. The only reason that I didn't order more is that we have a bunch of Dell OptiPlex GX1's that support PXE-booting. :-) --TP <div class="moz-signature">_______________________________ Do you GNU!? <a href="http://www.gnu.org/">Microsoft Free since 2003</a>--the ultimate antivirus protection! </div> Michael Blinn wrote: <blockquote cite="mid45DC7CD1.3000105@peopleplaces.org" type="cite">Thank you - I ordered a test batch of bootrom NICs from disklessworkstations and will be booting old machines soon! Regards, Michael Petre Scheie wrote: <blockquote type="cite">No, it's part of the x86 architecture, the same way it 'knows' to ask the floppy drive or hard drive for some sort of boot code. I've got a 486 from 1994 or so with a bootrom NIC and it boots just fine (I just use it for showing off). Any PC will do. Petre Michael Blinn wrote: <blockquote type="cite"> Yeah, my adult users would lose the CDs (; Does the NIC with bootrom route require a semi-new BIOS that can recognize a NIC as a boot device? If not, from a purely intellectual standpoint, how does the computer know to boot from it? Thanks Petre, Michael Petre Scheie wrote: <blockquote type="cite">You can boot a thin client from a CD, just like you can boot one from a floppy disk. And you can still use the CD drive and the floppy drive for Local Device Access (LDA). But there are some tradeoffs. First, to use the CD or floppy drive, users will have to remove the boot CD/floppy, which means they're going to lose the CD/floppy or scratch/break it or forget to put it back in, etc. If your users are all adults, this might, MIGHT be manageable; but if your users are kids, I think you'll find it frustrating. BTW, LDA does not support music CDs in the clients. You can buy a NIC with a bootrom for $20 at disklessworkstations.com. These are great, and you never have to worry about losing the boot media. Of course, using an etherboot CD or floppy is cheaper, so it really depends on what your priority is. </blockquote> _______________________________________________ K12OSN mailing list <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:K12OSN@redhat.com">K12OSN@redhat.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn">https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn</a> For more info see <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.k12os.org"><http://www.k12os.org></a> </blockquote> _______________________________________________ K12OSN mailing list <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:K12OSN@redhat.com">K12OSN@redhat.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn">https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn</a> For more info see <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.k12os.org"><http://www.k12os.org></a> </blockquote> </blockquote> </body> </html>