Slackware offer an net install? If not why?

Hi,

Slackware *does* offer to use NFS, HTTP and FTP as source of packages *after* you booted your machine via floppy or CD.

I don`t think Slackware offers a complete "netboot" like Net/Open/FreeBSD or Solaris do.

The reason may be that on Intel-based PCs it is rather unusual to own a NIC that supports netboot like SUN machines does out of the box. 8-)

Does this answer your question?



Greetings

Pollyanna

Weirdly enough, your title gives the answer. SlackFTP is two disks that allow you to install Slackware via FTP.

Interesting, I had never heard of that project.

Hi,

well, there is a small but important difference between "netinstall" and "network installation floppys". 8-)

netinstall (like SUN machines do):
Start the machine and after selftest type
boot net netbsd
and the machine will boot (and install if you want) *completly* over the network, no floppys, no cds needed.
This comes handy if the machine has no floppy and no cd. ;-)

network install floppys (like PCs do):
Boot of a floppy/cd with network drivers, configure the system and *then* use a distant machine as source for your *packages*, so you don`t need 400 floppys to install slackware on a machine without cd but with networkcard. ;-)

Most NICs doesn't support booting over the network like SUNs do.

Additionally I think the "Slackware" boot floppys support installation using NFS and FTP out of the box using the "Network"-floppy containing drivers for different NICs.


Enjoy the Weekend

Pollyanna

You could use grub bootloader, configure and compile it with the
net card driver, then you can attempt a net install or netboot from
a boot server

Hi,

there are plenty of possibilities. 8-)
The only thing is, to configure "grub" to boot over the network you have to install "grub" first...

I woud prefer using an NIC which *can* boot over the network, but on a PC I have not tried this till now.

I once tried 20+ different floppys to boot an ancient SUN SPARCStation 2 without CD and with obviously broken floppy only to totaly fail. 8-(
Then I configured a server to boot the machine over the network and now think this is the most clean an timesaving methond of installing.

Over the years I have burned nearly 50 Slackware CDs to install from ... they are garbage now.


Enjoy the weekend

Pollyanna