Mailing List Archive: network booting/diskless mythfrontend box

network booting/diskless mythfrontend box

May 16, 2003, 6:16 PM

Post #1 of 6 (1659 views)

I really want to go diskless with my frontend, but I can't find a good
microatx motherboard that will pxe boot. I guess I could buy a nic card
and an eeprom, but I would rather have it be supported on board. I was
using an asus a7n266-vm which turns out to have been a horrible purchase
because I can't underclock or undervolt it to run silent and the bios
sucks and won't boot over the network. I also tried a pcchips m758lmr
board and put linuxbios on it, but the cpu usage even on a celeron
1.2ghz was too much to run mythfrontend. For some reason on that board X
would take up 30-50% cpu when playing video - the board did network boot
though.
So...
Can someone recommend a good microatx board to run in my frontend? I
have both an xp 1700 and a celeron 1.2 laying around so intel/amd
doesn't matter. All I care about is build in network booting. I am
posting this hoping someone has personal experience with diskless myth.

Thanks all!

--

Re: network booting/diskless mythfrontend box [ In reply to ]

lists at forevermore

May 16, 2003, 6:28 PM

Post #2 of 6 (1625 views)

Permalink

> Can someone recommend a good microatx board to run in my frontend? I
> have both an xp 1700 and a celeron 1.2 laying around so intel/amd
> doesn't matter. All I care about is build in network booting. I am
> posting this hoping someone has personal experience with diskless myth.

You might want to look into the EPIA boards mentioned in a previous
thread (sorry, can't remember which). A friend of mine has been doing
some diskless development with these, and the faster ones should be
plenty capable of handling video display - most of them are passively
cooled, too. no fans. and they're extremely small.

-Chris

Re: network booting/diskless mythfrontend box [ In reply to ]

nospamjoe at nospam

May 16, 2003, 10:44 PM

Post #3 of 6 (1605 views)

Permalink

Another, perhaps more complex option, is to boot off a flash (IDE or
possibly USB) drive.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wally" <wally@satx.rr.com>
To: <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 6:16 PM
Subject: [mythtv-users] network booting/diskless mythfrontend box

> I really want to go diskless with my frontend, but I can't find a good
> microatx motherboard that will pxe boot. I guess I could buy a nic card
> and an eeprom, but I would rather have it be supported on board. I was
> using an asus a7n266-vm which turns out to have been a horrible purchase
> because I can't underclock or undervolt it to run silent and the bios
> sucks and won't boot over the network. I also tried a pcchips m758lmr
> board and put linuxbios on it, but the cpu usage even on a celeron
> 1.2ghz was too much to run mythfrontend. For some reason on that board X
> would take up 30-50% cpu when playing video - the board did network boot
> though.
> So...
> Can someone recommend a good microatx board to run in my frontend? I
> have both an xp 1700 and a celeron 1.2 laying around so intel/amd
> doesn't matter. All I care about is build in network booting. I am
> posting this hoping someone has personal experience with diskless myth.
>
> Thanks all!
>
> --
>

Re: network booting/diskless mythfrontend box [ In reply to ]

smdavidson at belugasoftware

May 17, 2003, 4:10 PM

Post #4 of 6 (1615 views)

Permalink

There are a few companies that sell cheap IDE-CF adapters:

http://adis.ca/store/cfdisk.php

The cfdisk.5d plugs directly in to the IDE header, and setup is
trivial. I am using one of these in an LRP router, sounds like it might
work well for your purposes.

Keep us informed - I'm thinking of putting together a mAtx EPIA box for
my frontend, would love to hear how this works for you.

On Fri, 2003-05-16 at 22:44, Joe Byrne wrote:
> Another, perhaps more complex option, is to boot off a flash (IDE or
> possibly USB) drive.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wally" <wally@satx.rr.com>
> To: <mythtv-users@snowman.net>
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 6:16 PM
> Subject: [mythtv-users] network booting/diskless mythfrontend box
>
>
> > I really want to go diskless with my frontend, but I can't find a good
> > microatx motherboard that will pxe boot. I guess I could buy a nic card
> > and an eeprom, but I would rather have it be supported on board. I was
> > using an asus a7n266-vm which turns out to have been a horrible purchase
> > because I can't underclock or undervolt it to run silent and the bios
> > sucks and won't boot over the network. I also tried a pcchips m758lmr
> > board and put linuxbios on it, but the cpu usage even on a celeron
> > 1.2ghz was too much to run mythfrontend. For some reason on that board X
> > would take up 30-50% cpu when playing video - the board did network boot
> > though.
> > So...
> > Can someone recommend a good microatx board to run in my frontend? I
> > have both an xp 1700 and a celeron 1.2 laying around so intel/amd
> > doesn't matter. All I care about is build in network booting. I am
> > posting this hoping someone has personal experience with diskless myth.
> >
> > Thanks all!
> >
> > --
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Re: network booting/diskless mythfrontend box [ In reply to ]

hpoley at dds

May 19, 2003, 12:52 AM

Post #5 of 6 (1609 views)

Permalink

> Van: Wally <wally@satx.rr.com>
>
> I really want to go diskless with my frontend, but I can't find a good
> microatx motherboard that will pxe boot.

Would you mind installing floppy-drive on the system? Then you could use a
bootfloppy (~36kb) from http://www.rom-o-matic.org/

Yes, I know, it's not elegant. But it works :-)

Henk Poley <><

Re: network booting/diskless mythfrontend box [ In reply to ]

erik_nospam.arendse at bigfoot

May 19, 2003, 1:21 AM

Post #6 of 6 (1632 views)

Permalink

At 19-5-03 09:52, Henk Poley wrote:
> > Van: Wally <wally@satx.rr.com>
> >
> > I really want to go diskless with my frontend, but I can't find a good
> > microatx motherboard that will pxe boot.
>
>Would you mind installing floppy-drive on the system? Then you could use a
>bootfloppy (~36kb) from http://www.rom-o-matic.org/
>
>Yes, I know, it's not elegant. But it works :-)

I use old discarded IDE drives (the few hundred MB junkpile type).
After booting I load all in RAM and kick the drive into sleepmode. Some of
them are even unable to unsleep without hanging linux, but I don't care.

They are:
- easy to mount inside a case
- totally silent when sleeping
- can be remotely administerd
- big enough to put any dedicated stuff onto so they can still boot without
the network

I hate networkbooting in a private situation, because all machines use
different setups (mostly network and video). In a commercial situation it's
a different story, I just tell the boss I want identical machines :-)

Erik

Erik