[Q] (Slightly OT) KVM Over CAT5 or Other....

[Robert Edwards]

On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 04:07 pm, Alex Satrapa wrote:
> Robert Edwards wrote:
> > Don't use a hard drive - these boards will boot diskless from a network
> > server no problem at all.
>
> Some people might like the option of PXE - to me it's just asking for
> trouble. I would only use PXE for the diskless Jukebox machine sitting
> with all the other (quiet) audio gear in the entertainment unit.
>

We netboot (actually, using EtherBoot - sort of like an earlier open version 
of PXE) on:
 - all our cluster node machines (96 dual CPU boxes)
 - all our Linux lab machines (about 70)
 - many of our linux firewall/routers (about 5)
 - and at home I use it on several systems

No trouble at all. Relatively fast, easy to maintain, and quiet.

If you are worried about hard drive noise (the bit you cut off the reply on 
your message) as well as heat, vibration, power consumption, susceptibility 
to failure etc. then netbooting is a definite worthwhile option.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.