Installing over a network
 

Alright,

So my network is up and running with a total of three computers on it currently. There is this box, which is an XP box, my father's which is also an XP box, and there is my laptop which is a MDK 9 machine. That's just a little background.

So now I want to finally live my dream: have a server in my own bedroom. While I was home in Maine a few weeks ago I grabbed my first computer on the way out. It was the first computer I ever had, given to me by my mentor who is the tech. coordinator in my old school district. Wait, it's actually my second ever. I'm forgetting the one I went and bought for a hundred dollars and later gave to my sister. But that one had the typical proprietory hardware so I never really considered it mine since it was so hard to do modifications.

I brought it home and realized that I had forgotten to grab a keyboard for it, because while it is a 500mhz, 256mb ram machine, the motherboard is wicked, wicked old and still uses PS/1 (is that what's called, the fat one). So instead of buying one of those keyboards, I decided I would buy a PS/2-USB adapter and finally make use of the KVM switch I bought well over a year ago.

The seller (I use ebay habitually) was in Japan, thus it took awhile to get it here but it finally did a couple of nights ago.

Ah, great, I said to myself. Now all I need to is install Linux, hook up the KVm and such and go from there. I decided I wouldn't use Mandrake on this box, the harddrive is very small and I don't feel like buying a new one just yet. I had heard about Peanut Linux from a friend who I used to geek out (you know, sit on your computers for days and days doing nothing and everything you possibly can with them) with. He said he could run it from a floppy or something like that. I wasn't too interested in all that. I was interested in using a different flavor as my server and also I figured that if it's named "Peanut", it had to be at least a little more efficient than RH or MDK.

So I downloaded it today and burned it on a cd tonight. But I've run into one fundamental problem: the CD-Rom is dead.

This doesn't surprise me all that much, for I have no idea what kind of hell this box could have been through. I was rather pleased that the USB-PS/2 adapter was working in harmony with the KVM switch.

Honestly, though, I don't want to buy another CD-Rom and I'm not seeing any lying in any of my computer things.

I've heard rumors that you can install a distribution over a network. Can anyone help me do this with Peanut Linux (or, if I must, another distro.) Is there any generic way to do this that works with all distros?

Any help will be appreciated, for sure. I truly do want a general purpose server.

How small is the drive that you need to use Peanut Linux?

Because Peanut Linux isn't really a server distro. It is made to get Linux running with the minimum amount of resources. You certainly wouldn't want to run a dedicated server on it.

For a server, you are going to want Slackware or Debian. Both can be installed over the network, and both are very good on old hardware; though I would hardly consider that machine old hardware. I have run servers on much less than that, serving a few hundred clients.

But is a network install really what you want to do? It is a bit slow, and can be tricky.

You can get a new CD-ROM drive for a few dollars anymore. Or take one out of another machine for a few hours to get your distro installed, then put it back in the other machine.

And how do you know the CD-ROM drive doesn't work in the first place? It could be a BIOS or cabling issue, or even a bad burned CD.

Hi, moonpunter.

I agree with MS3FGX. Slackware's my vote for servers and swapping CD drives would be easier than a network install.

That said, doing an installation over NFS isn't TOO bad, assuming your current linux box has NFS up and running without any nasty firewall issues. First look around on Google and get your Mandrake box set up to use NFS (server side). Keep in mind that you'll have to open a few ports and start a few processes in order to do this. Download Slackware 10 and burn it onto CD. (It should take 2 CDs if you just want the installation disks.) You might want to consult the Coasterless Burning Guide on the LinuxQuestions WIKI in order to make sure you get a good burn. Look around for info on the NFS installation. :study: (I'd give you a play-by-play HOW-TO but I don't have any systems at the moment that I nuke the hard drives of and start over. :) ) If you get stuck let us know and we'll try to help you out.

Good luck!

--Dane