Free Like GNU

PXE allows one to boot another computer (that has no OS, no CD drive and unable to boot from USB) over ethernet! This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen.

A friend of mine had just such a machine and we were able to boot his otherwise useless laptop from my laptops ethernet and install Xubuntu over the internet via wifi!

I read a nice tutorial on HowToForge.com about how to install Multiple OS via PXE. There are a few items that are a little dated compared to the 7.10 Xubuntu I am currently running and there are some tools that make the whole process a lot easier…

“gdhcpd” is one of those tools. It’s basically a GUI for your DCHP daemon that will assign an address to a machine connected to your (via ethernet, wifi whatever)

“pxe” Ubuntu package provides a ready-made pxe server daemon

“dhcp3-server” does the DHCP gruntwork

“tftpd-hpa” will serve the necessary boot files over the network

get all of these packages together with the following command:

sudo-apt get install dhcp3-server gdhcpd tftpd-hpa pxe gdhcpd

once you install these packages you will need to download, unpack and copy the bootable image files to /var/lib/tftpboot

lftp -c "open http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy/main/installer-i386/current/images/; mirror netboot/"

will download the netboot image forlder to your current folder which you can the copy as root or sudo to /var/lib/tftpboot

If the HowToForge DHCP setup instructions dont work for you, try gdhcpd.

from that point the HowToForge tutorial can guide you on various paths…

You may need to set the bios on the target machine to boot from PXE, it may take a few attempts but the reward is well worth the effort. You might even question if installing via CDs feels antiquated.

The benefit of a net install is that you have all the latest packages. You dont waste time downloading and installing old versions and then downloading updates right after your install! Another advantage is not burning CDs and DVDs for them to become coasters.
I think this method is also easier than booting from usb sticks which was a previous favorite. But I think that is just from the psychological high of doing something GNU….