[K12OSN] Network boot hangs

[Eric Brown]

IMHO, you're probably not going to be happy with the performance you
get with 200MHz processors and 96mb of ram.  My Spidey senses tell me
that you may not have enough RAM (although technically LTSP can work
with even less that this on a client), or you may have put 128MB in a
machine that can only see 96MB.

I think you'll be happier if you can find some 400MHz or higher
machines that have 128MB ram that someone's throwing out.

Good luck.
Eric



On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Peter Trifonov <petert at dcn.infos.ru> wrote:
> Rob, thanks a lot for the suggestion. I have tried gPXE, but with the same
> result.
> The problem arises AFTER Linux kernel is downloaded from the server and
> started.
> The kernel says:
>
> ...
> Creating new ramdisk to hold our new rootfs
> Mounting root filesystem: ... from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [Some NFS traffic is
> observed at the server at this moment]
> Setting up the new root ramdisk area
> Doing the switchroot
> SwitchRoot v0.1 - Copyright 2005 Linux based systems design
> Freeing ram used by initramfs
>
>
> After this the system stops doing anything.
>
>
> With best regards,
> P. Trifonov
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On
>> Behalf Of Rob Owens
>> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 6:21 PM
>> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
>> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Network boot hangs
>>
>> I had a similar problem and found that some clients would not boot with
>> an etherboot cd, but they would boot with a gPXE cd.  Try that.  You
>> can get it from www.rom-o-matic.net.  When it comes to the driver
>> selection part, choose gpxe from the drop-down list.
>>
>> -Rob
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 10:54:44AM +0300, Peter Trifonov wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > I have installed K12LTSP 5-EL/32 bit onto a server in my network. It
>> works
>> > fine with relatively modern client PCs.
>> > However, booting 12-year old HP Vectra PCs (Pentium-200 CPU, 96 MB
>> RAM)
>> > hangs with the words "Freeing ram used by initramfs".
>> > The system is not really frozen, but nothing happens.  I have a few
>> such
>> > PCs, and all of them exhibit such behavior. I have observed some NFS
>> traffic
>> > between the server and the client before it hangs.
>> >
>> > Does anyone have any suggestions what can be wrong with the clients?
>
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