Hi all - new to this forum, looking for some help.

I'm interested in installing linux on a Dell Powervault 715 Network Attached Storage Device (NAS)... I'm sick of the default MS Server 2003 OS that came installed on these things, it is driving me crazy. I'm not a complete newbie.

There are currently three partitions on this device. Two with MS Server installed (one is redundant, a backup) and one with my data. My goal is to load linux over the unused windows OS partition and end up with a dual booting NAS !!!

The first obstacle is the fact that these devices don't have a floppy drive or cd-rom, although I do have a network connection and I can use terminal emulation to log into the device and run as the Windows administrator easily.

Is there a way to install linux (ideally the ftp version of suse 9.1) without booting from a floppy or cd-rom? I'm open to almost any distribution. I just want to run samba and a few other simple services on this thing. The disk configuration is 4 disks at raid 5.

If I can get it to work, I may be doing this on up to 50 devices...., help me get rid of MS Server and be linux hero! :-)

Seriously, any ideas, pointers, help or encouragement is welcome.

Thanks - Hal

Shit not even a floppy?

Can this device boot from the network?

Should be able to boot from the network, just set that in the BIOS (I'll assume you know how to do that) and then setup your share with the install media on another computer and away you go

Ah, boot from the network - good idea. I'll take a look at the bios options on Monday.

I have not opened the cover on one of these things in a while, but there may be a floppy controller that I can plug into temporarily, as well.

Thanks, will post back and let you know what I find.

- Hal

Do you have a USB port? Is it bootable? do you have a USB media key? USB floppy? USB key's of 64meg are only like $15.

No USB port. The device has two network ports and a single com port.