Any Bootable Wireless NICs ? 18
ReidMaynard asks: "Recently I've been playing with the idea of a wireless netboot system...however, I would like not to use a floppy to boot from. I understand that if a NIC card has a EPROM socket, I can flash an EPROM and stick it in the NIC to do a netboot ... but I cannot seem to locate any wireless cards (or more exactly) any pcmcia-to-PCI adaptors which have a EPROM socket ... does anyone know of such an animal ... or a PCMCIA card which has a built-in programmable area (unlikely) ...?" This is one of those things that sounds really obvious once it's been spoken, but I'd never thought about this before. Sure would have been nice in certain office environments I've been in.
My Opinion on Why This Probably Doesn't Exist (Score:4, Informative)
It's the memory address (Score:2)
Maybe a better solution (Score:3, Insightful)
A slightly better idea would be to get one of those IDE flash drives w/1 MB of space or so (even less). Put the netboot data on them like you would a floppy. This way, it's less expensive, easier to use, and much cheaper to upgrade to a better 802.11 standard when it comes.
Other way... (Score:4, Insightful)
Additional advantage: you get in linux in 3 seconds in some cases
Of course it all depends if your chipset supports it, and if you're willing to risk it. (of course if you have a flasher, so that you can restore a working bios image it's less of a risk)
YES! but not 802.11 (Score:3, Informative)
it's been done before (Score:2, Offtopic)
1) "Eagle": has RG45, BNC plug and D-15 socket on it.
Main chip: advanced micro devices AM79C960KG (1992)
Card part number: 60-E2100C-2 Date: 94/08 Distrib : IPEX
EPROM is a National Semiconductor NM27C256Q (already on-board)
2) "Novell, Inc 1990"
Has a D-15 and BNC plug on it.
Main Chip: Advanced Micro Devices AM7990JC/80 (1985)
Card part Number : BD #738-000209-001 RevC Assy. #810-000209-001 RevF
Required EPROM is a 27256. I have a 27C512 off an old 486 motherboard.
Re:it's been done before (Score:2)
Re:it's been done before (Score:1)
Re:it's been done before (Score:1)
Some boot rom capable cards (Score:1, Offtopic)
Kingston 10/100 [kingston.com]
Kti 10/100
True... (Score:1)
Mac and Airport? (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyone try this?
Re:Mac and Airport? (Score:3, Informative)
All macs have a cool bootloader known as Open Firmware. This takes the form of a tiny little forth interpreter, and this is also where netboot-ing takes place. So, I am guessing that there are Ethernet drivers built into to this. As for Wireless cards, they seem fairly similar to regular nics, so mabey it is already supported. As I recall, the OF has a whoooole bunch of drivers, like USB and audio, already built in.
To check it out, restart your mac, and hold down apple-option-o-f when it first turns on. You will get a nice little shell in a few seconds. As I recall, type printenv to see a list a variables. A bunch of these have to do with netboot. I would guess that if you just set the IP, etc, evertyhing will work out.
Good Luck
--Alex Fishman
Re:Mac and Airport? (Score:3, Interesting)
'boot enet:<NIC #>,<bootfile name>'
enet:0 should give you the onboard cabled ethernet, and enet:1 should let you boot off the wireless. Whatever you put as the bootfile name is the file it will download off the TFTP server and execute.
Use another card with an EPROM (Score:2, Interesting)
It's been a long time since I played with booting a machine over the net and I don't remember the name of the package that allows to create an EPROM image or a floppy image from the same data. The floppy image allows you to test the package before you burn it into an EPROM. Use this and see if you can the machine to boot via the wireless card. If it works, then burn the EPROM and put it into the standard NIC card (which you don't even have to configure).
Karl Heinz