Congrats. All your posts made a howto.

Well some questions stays unanswered (see above). For example, the / filesystem is mounted as umsdos, not as nfs... Strange, isn't it ?
And i wonder if it's possible to install a Slackware on a nfs root partition. I mean like we do with the install CD, but instead of selecting /dev/hda1 or /dev/sda8 as /, we select 192.168.231.2:/exports/pxeslack. Then the installer continues as usual.

I just suceeded in booting on a non-zipslack. I installpkg'ed basic Slackware packages inside a directory.
Then i used the same procedure, except i had to create an /etc/fstab in the nfs filesystem. This is the content :

192.168.223.1:/exports/slack / nfs nfsvers=3,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,tcp
proc /proc proc defaults
ramfs /tmp ramfs defaults 0 0
ramfs /var/tmp ramfs 0 0
ramfs /var/run ramfs 0 0
ramfs /var/log ramfs 0 0
ramfs /var/lock ramfs 0 0
ramfs /var/state ramfs 0 0
ramfs /media ramfs 0 0



As you can see i changed the root path from /var/clients/default to /exports/slack

This is more like i wanted it to be and i thank everyone who helped.

Alien Bob, i detected something that can be problematic with Slackware on nfs : ramfs /var/log ramfs 0 0
As /var/log is mounted in ram, we don't have access to /var/log/packages. So we can't perform upgrades because packages aren't listed in, and upgradepkg doesn't work with the -root switch.
Of course, we can't suppress the ram mount, because all clients station will write in the nfs /var/log.

I tried that but it didn't worked :

ramfs /var/log ramfs 0 0
192.168.223.1:/exports/slack/var/log/packages /var/log/packages nfs nfsvers=3,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,tcp

It works with these lines added to /etc/rc.d/rc.local :

mkdir /var/log/packages
mount -t nfs 192.168.223.1:/exports/slack/var/log/packages /var/log/packages

Maybe there's a better workaround.

I have some stability issues with X crashes. But as i test the client on a vmware player for now, don't consider this as definitive.

You should be aware that with this kind of setup, you would not want any user to start using upgradepkg when running Slackware off the NFS mount.
For one, you should give the root account to no one but yourself. Second, any change you make to the NFS content will be available immediately on every computer that runs this PXE-booted Slackware.

So, it would be best to upgrade packages on the NFS server, using the command
Cheers, Eric

Roger that !
But in some case, i will have to log as root on clients (ie.: nvidia drivers install)

Btw i just booted a true PC with a PXE capable network card, and it works (of course ).

This is really cool, I just got a laptop(for free!) that has a bad hard disk, but it can pxe boot.. looks like I have something to do over the weekend :]
Thanks for ALL the info.

(time : tic tac tic tac tic tac tic tac tic tac ...)

One year has past since i did all this walkthrough.
And i'm afraid things has changed and i can't boot on nfs anymore !

All the tftp + dhcp is really easy to enable.

Now, making a working initrd is a pain !

I wonder why there's a pxe installer, but no pxe loader in the 12.X Slack !

Let's go back to work ...

I did the same errors about kernel config :
NFS must be build INSIDE the kernel, in order to get the nfsroot option available.
And IP kernel level autoconfiguration for dhcp and bootp must be enabled (in networking).

I got ip, but i can't mount nfs.

rpcbind: server not responding, timed out
Now RPC: failed to contact local rpcbind server ...

Seems that there's no rpc on the client.
Did someone knows how to install it in the initrd ?

Just copy the relevant files and libraries to your initrd. Hint: look at /sbin/rpc.portmap

Eric

Right ! Always helping around, Alien Bob, isn't it ?

I wrote this little script in order to ease the installation of a new kernel (same for host/guest) :

You need to create a /root/tmp, and and a /root/new-kernel-kit

Place two packages in /root/new-kernel-kit : portmap and glibc
These packages are needed for nfs mount.

You need to place a modified init (found in an initrd's root) in /root/new-kernel-kit : just add /sbin/rpc.portmap below the mdev -s line
This modification is needed for nfs mount too.

Of course, you have to modify some locations, according to your settings !!!

Install a new kernel and reboot, then :

emacs /root/new-kernel.sh

#!/bin/sh

rm -rf /root/tmp/*
#modify kernel version corrrectly
mkinitrd -c -F -k 2.6.25.8-smp
cp /boot/initrd.gz /root/tmp
cd /root/tmp
gzip -dc < ./initrd.gz | cpio -i
rm initrd.gz
cp ../new-kernel-kit/init ./
installpkg -root /root/tmp/ ../new-kernel-kit/*.tgz
find ./ | cpio -H newc -o > /tftpboot/slack/initrd.img

#modify kernel version corrrectly
rm -rf /srv/exports/slack/lib/modules/2.6.24.5-smp/*
cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.25.8-smp/ /srv/exports/slack/lib/modules/

cp /boot/vmlinuz /tftpboot/slack/
/srv/exports/slack/boot/

could not open default font fixed

This is what i got when i try to launch X.

I'm searching around, but if you have any idea...

EDIT : ------------------------------------------------------------------

Solved with :

mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/*
mkfontscale /usr/share/fonts/*