What distros offer installation over ftp or http? Thanks

redhat for one

I think most of the big distros does now a days.
Why not try FreeBSD or Suse.

/dude.

Gentoo almost completely installs and updates over ftp/http.

yes gentoo does that is the system that i run 1.2

although i have trouble with https.
ftp is brill

Gentoo 1.2? Try "emerge -u world" and you will be at 1.4 in no time (depending on number of packages and CPU-speed)

1.4 is out

you see i am well behind keeping my records up to date i shall buy it shortly after a few recomendations on where to buy it!

You can install slackware over ftp but it requires linux knowledge. You have to boot the install floppys, manually configure your internet connection from a shell (modprobe, ip config etc) then configure and load ftpfs so that a directory on your computer seems to contian the files but the files actually get download from the ftp site as needed.

I think I found some instructions in a linux newsgroup using groups.google.com.
The install floppys don't have dhcp client so you might have to get a copy of that as well.

SuSE

where do you get slockware firstly

Yes, I installed SuSE entirely over FTP with a few floppy disks. Very handy

This ftp thing isn't quite as simple if you're behind a firewall... I installed SuSE 9.0 via ftp, since they don't provide iso's for download. And what I discovered -- I installed from the 'boot iso' CD -- was that they seemingly require the actual IP Address, not just the name, of the ftp site you're getting files from. I post this only because maybe someone else will be saved the headaches I went through to suss it out.

A quick how-to (no guarantees!) if you're wanting to do this from behind a firewall:

- download the SuSE boot.iso and burn a CD with it (or get the floppy images). See suse.com for that file in their download pages.

- from your current linux or windows OS, ping the named site, say, ftp.jonsbox.org [no, it doesn't exist!] -- and you should get the actual IP address (which will come in four numbers, something like: 199.231.69.24 [again, no, that isn't a real download site either]. Once you have that number, open your linux or windows browser and find the actual installation directory on that site. Once you have all that info, use your boot CD or floppies and --

- install your network card driver first (which I had to do manually from the list of supported cards, you may want to check if your card is supported by suse before bothering with the rest of this)
- choose 'network install' and 'ftp', then
- either manually or automatically configure the dhcp server (which was not a problem in my case, it was automagically detected by the boot CD) --
- type in the IP Number of the remote site, along with the path and
- HIT ENTER, hoping that it begins the SuSE 9.0 install.

Again, I apologize if this info is incomplete, useless, or (worst of all) inaccurate... plz let me know in any case.

>where do you get slockware firstly
No idea where to get "slockware firstly" but you might be able to make do with slackware which is at www.slackware.com

>This ftp thing isn't quite as simple if you're behind a firewall...
yeah, I don't remember seeing an option for passive mode ftp, it probably does that anyway.

>they seemingly require the actual IP Address, not just the name
Either you didn't configure any nameservers when you manually started networking or
the DHCP server on the LAN dosn't automatically allocate DNS servers.
You could proably add some but it's easier to look up the ip's beforehand.

No you remind me, I think I had to do that to install salckware from an ftp.