Using a 3c990 with FAI

[Jens Ruehmkorf]

Hi All!

>     > provided there. FAI doesn't use an initrd (because of memory
>     > limitations I suppose).
> No, because it's easier without initrd AND you need not much memory.

Why?

Usually you don't have to fiddle with the initrd that comes with nais
0.22. You simply copy it to your tftpboot-root, chmod 644, adjust your
dhcp-server and reboot your client. That's as easy as using a nfs-root.

I can't see any difficulties in that.

With regard to memory: nais indeed uses more memory.  [Because it reserves
more space for the ramdisks than fai does, the memory the initrd actually
needs is negligible].

Of course, when it comes to non-standard hardware to be supported during
bootup, you have to customize it. That might be work, agreed: gunzip your
initrd, mount -o loop it, copy your modules to it, change the linuxrc to
modprobe your drivers, unmount it, gzip it again and update your tftpboot.

> One other possibilty would be, to create a boot CD, that contains the
> nfsroot.

Yes, that would be a solution. But building a cd-image with a root-system
is probably as easy (or hard) as building an initrd-image. And when it
comes to non-standard hardware (if you consider pcmcia-cards [0] to be
non-standard), you need to make the same corrections to your cd-rom as to
your initrd.

Not speaking that each of your cluster-clients needs to have a cdrom at
30-50$ each.

Unless you install everything from your CD-Roms (by providing CDs for your
packages), there is no advantage in using a CD-Rom at all.  Otherwise you
have to use the network for installing the packages anyhow.

But there might indeed be cases when you would like to do so, when you
would like to provide an "install-image" for a computer on a CD-Rom.

Kind regards,
Jens

[0] Rumor has it that some people from the technical staff came up whith
the "PCMCIA"-acronym, because their marketing department couldn't come up
with something else faster. It reads like "_People _Can't _Memorize
_Computer _Industries _Acronyms" ;)

--
ruehmkorf at informatik dot uni hyphen koeln dot de