[K12OSN] Booting older thin clients

Michael Blinn mblinn at peopleplaces.org
Wed Feb 21 17:09:37 UTC 2007


Thank you - I ordered a test batch of bootrom NICs from 
disklessworkstations and will be booting old machines soon!
Regards,
 Michael

Petre Scheie wrote:
> 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:
>>  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:
>>> 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.
>>
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>
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