Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 00:44:24 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Chris Shenton <cshenton@OutBounderInc.com> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ThinkNIC booting FreeBSD? [WAS: Re: Silent FreeBSD] Message-ID: <3A9B5AD8.10EB0A1D@softweyr.com> References: <3A4B7498.267D52E8@softweyr.com> <005801c07037$47ae6ea0$0402010a@biohz.net> <200012281812.LAA95895@harmony.village.org> <3A4CC308.9A3F092C@softweyr.com>
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Chris Shenton wrote: > > In message <3A4B7498.267D52E8@softweyr.com> Wes Peters writes: > > > We have several NIC's around here (the New Internet Computer, see > > http://www.thinknic.com/ for details) and will be adding a couple of these > > so we can boot FreeBSD or NetBSD on them in the next little while. A NIC > > running FreeBSD on a silent CF disk strikes me as an ideal bedroom computer; > > you can leave it on all the time and just let the screen sleep when you're > > not using it. > > Been thinking seriously about buying a couple of these; hard to beat > the $200 price point. Chat on one of the NIC lists indicates they had > two fans and will now ship with three fans; this seems like it will > make it rather noisey -- especially since they're diskless and should > be quiet. They are quiet. I didn't notice any fans in the ones we disassembled at work. The Geode processor runs QUITE hot, though. They make good hand- warmers when it's snowing outside. > Since I prefer FreeBSD to Linux, I'd rather run BSD than the Linux on > the CD it runs from. Is it possible to create an ISO of a bootable > and runnable FreeBSD? What happens with stuff like /tmp and /var/log? You wouldn't want it; performance running off the CD-ROM is terrible. Get a 2.5" hard drive and stick it to the case top with double-sticky tape. > Failing this, I'd probably net-boot the NICs off a bigger FreeBSD > machine, and NFS mount /home dirs and /usr/local type of software. That would probably give you better performance than the CD-ROM. The NIC has a small flash disk in it as well; you could probably put the boot loader and enough /boot filesystem on that to autoboot. > That way when I built a tool or package it would be available to any > of the FreeBSD boxes in the house. Seems like a great bang/buck > ratio. Any comments on this approach? Sounds good to me. Maybe I should setup a netboot server at work and have a hack at it. We've got a couple of IDE->CompactFlash adapters I could play with without scrogging the NIC-standard flash device. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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