I've been looking around for this one off and on for about the last week but don't have an answer yet. Here's my dilemma:

I have a computer that only has 64 megs of ram. The FTP install won't work since it's 10 megs short. My CD burner is also on the fritz at the moment. The setup program recommended an NFS install since it takes less memory. I currently do have Mandriva installed on my main computer (this one), and have some idea I need to set up something called an NFS server.

If I can get an NFS install I can get Mandriva installed on two older computers (one that doesn't accept any Mandriva install I've tried so far).

What I'd like to know is how to set up an NFS Server and if the NFS install is any different from say an Internet install.

Appologies if this question has been asked before.

I'd love to hear a good reply to this one as well, so I'm posting to subscribe myself to the thread mainly. I've got a suspicion that a completely CD-less installation (as in not even the FTP install CD) is going to be really hard though. I think it requires you to boot over the network which I've been trying to work my head around for a LONG time now. It sounds enormously complicated as it requires something like a PXE Boot system which requires you to set up a DHCP server, a tftp server (I really don't even know what these things do), and then create a bootable image and somehow manage to point the computer that you're trying to network boot to the proper place. The documentation that I read on it nearly made my head explode. :s Have you considered a smaller distribution that can be booted or installed from a USB pen drive? 64 megs of RAM will work in Mandriva with a more basic Window Manager like IceWM, but it seems to me like it's still going to be pretty darn slow. I haven't tried it though so I may be wrong.

Also, I don't know where you're from, but around where I live there are usually libraries that give you access to the internet and CD burners and you usually don't have to pay to use them. I'm sure that not all areas have that sort of thing available though.

Once my CD burner is fixed I'm not quite out of the woods, I have another computer I hav etried everything with except for a nfs install. Since I can do it with both I'm going to look up on it yet.

Currently I have everything on my main PC set up. I've hit a road block with my secondary PC I'm trying to install on (and the one I'm having problems with). The monitor is an older Tandy and can't handle the setup screen that runs at 800 x 600 on the boot floppy.

Well there is a bit of guess work on my part here, but here goes nothing. This is how I think it would work to do an install over NFS with my limited knowledge of the protocol. I'd suggest reading up on it, but sometimes the documentation or how-tos on this sort of thing are mind numbing.

I think you're going to have to basically mirror the install tree or at least everything that you want to install. That means you'll have to download all of the files for the version of Mandriva that you want to install onto your harddrive somewhere. Next you'll have to set this up as an nfs share. Very easy in Mandriva. Make sure the stuff needed for nfs sharing is installed (In rpmdrake in the control center, go to remove, search for nfs, see if anything shows up. DON'T uninstall anything, but this will tell you if it's on your system. If not, go to the install part of rpmdrake and install the nfs packages.) Next in mandrake control center go to manage nfs shares. Add the directory that has all of the files needed to install Mandriva. Make sure that the computer that you're going to install Mandriva on has access to the share by putting in its IP address. Now your NFS share is set up on the server side.

This is where I get fuzzy. The boot.iso gives you the option of putting a mirror in like ftp:/blah/blah/blah. You may be able to just put in "ipaddressoftheserver:/nameofnfsshare". That's the normal syntax. But that assumes that the boot.iso is smart enough to be able to mount an nfs share which I'm not sure it is. Perhaps someone will see this and be able to point you in the right direction at this point.