An aside to your aside on PXE: I do the same when Im on a local net
where I control the DCHP server and can set the 'next server' pointer to
my PXE server. On that server I have archived dozens of linux flavors,
Knoppix, Windows Unattended, etc. and can install all of them via PXE
with customized kickstart files. Problem is, on our wide area net I
dont control the DHCP server. Id like to still be able to boot a
remove machine from flash drive with the smarts to get me to the PXE
server. A given RH/Fedora boot kernel + initrd will only allow you to
install its matching distro version. Any thoughts on ways around
this?* Perhaps there's a way to chain boot into a PXE 'like' image
with the IP address of the PXE server already dialed in. It still
needs to make the DHCP request though to get its IP, gateway router,
maybe DNS, etc at the remote site.
The way I've done this is to have a boot cd (or flash disk), which
downloads the initrd and vmlinuz necessary for the install you are
going to do, creates a boot partition (or reuses the existing boot
partition), puts the initrd an vmlinuz in there, configures grub, and
then reboots, booting from the hard drive, but into an environment very
similar to what you would have received from PXE.