From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Feb 27 13:18:50 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from digital.csudsu.com (digital.csudsu.com [209.249.57.102]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0596C37B719 for ; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 13:18:47 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from stefan@csudsu.com) Received: by digital.csudsu.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 4E26A22E01; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 13:21:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by digital.csudsu.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 436481F001; Tue, 27 Feb 2001 13:21:04 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 13:21:04 -0800 (PST) From: Stefan Molnar To: Wes Peters Cc: Chris Shenton , Subject: Re: ThinkNIC booting FreeBSD? [WAS: Re: Silent FreeBSD] In-Reply-To: <3A9B5AD8.10EB0A1D@softweyr.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Wes, you do not even need the flash to netboot, since it supports PXE. And it boots very nicely On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Wes Peters wrote: > 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 > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message