On Fri, 2006-04-07 at 16:22 +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
Does anyone here have any quick pointers to how I do a complete network install on a PC? I have had a look around and found some information which generally starts above my level.
Normally PXE/tftp booting would be the way to go. There are a couple of good Debianplanet pages on doing this. Alternatively there is this page which is a bit Red Hat specific but close enough
http://linux-sxs.org/internet_serving/pxeboot.html
But you will need to check that the Raq network hardware supports network boot and you will need to set up a network source for the packages (even though you are booting from network it won't be clever enough to pull the packages over the same method)
Also you have another problem...Raq's are headless so you have no direct way to "drive" the installer...you'll either need to script the installation and feed that script to the installer (some disro's support this) or configure the installer to use a serial console and then drive it from another machine using gtkterm (or similar)..The debian installer supports this....In fact I am told that if there is no local graphics capability then it defaults to the first serial port.
However that is all a bit of a hassle for one machine...So I'd try and do it the way I did it when I found myself in a similar situation setting up my media server (A recycled Nas appliance box, also headless and CD/Floppyless)
I put the disk in another machine (this may be a lot more difficult for you because I think Raq's are SCSI and you will therefore need to make sure that as well as the modules for your "installation machine" SCSI controllers you are loading the modules needed for the Raq4 )
Perform the most basic installation you can. Enable the serial console and check it works
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/index.html
Move the drive over to the other machine and reboot...finish setting up the Raq's hardware etc.
As I say that worked for me...but with IDE drives and very generic controllers...How it will work on SCSI I have no idea.