diskless boot question

[eXtremist]

My brother's HD died on him a while back, and I'd like to set up a diskless boot for him so he can use his comp again. The thing is, he uses Win9x, and I use linux.

I've never set up a diskless boot, so I have many questions.

1) Does HE need to have a special type of network card?
2) can I serv Win9x through linux?

[The Whizzard]

You'll need a NIC with a boot rom. You can also use a special boot floppy with the boot rom on it. I can't remember where to get this disk at the moment. Looking through the diskless how-to should provide some links.

As far as if Win98 can be run diskless, not a chance. Win95 was the last Windows version capable of running diskless. For running Win95 from a Linux server, it's possible but the instructions are a bit sketchy.

I've tried this a while back. I was only able to get DOS 6.22 to run diskless.

[eXtremist]

Sorry, I don't mean to argue but, the computer labs here in university are running diskless systems and we can boot to either RH or Win98.

I don't have a clue how their set up, but the computers do not reboot when entering windows. The XDM is there, you log in, it copies a few files, and boom, win98 starts booting. The computer never reboots...just goes from X to win98.

[mrBen]

Bear in mind that some diskless clients come with special boot PROMs that do all sorts of fancy things that your normal hdd machine can't do without it's harddrive.

[eXtremist]

Ahh.. So I guess it IS possible with enough fscking around?