From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Feb 26 23:33:27 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from homer.softweyr.com (bsdconspiracy.net [208.187.122.220]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D3F4137B719 for ; Mon, 26 Feb 2001 23:33:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=softweyr.com ident=Fools trust ident!) by homer.softweyr.com with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 14Xeo5-0000No-00; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 00:44:25 -0700 Message-ID: <3A9B5AD8.10EB0A1D@softweyr.com> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 00:44:24 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12 i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Chris Shenton Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ThinkNIC booting FreeBSD? [WAS: Re: Silent FreeBSD] References: <3A4B7498.267D52E8@softweyr.com> <005801c07037$47ae6ea0$0402010a@biohz.net> <200012281812.LAA95895@harmony.village.org> <3A4CC308.9A3F092C@softweyr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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