This thread is a continuation of http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6297.0 (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6297.0) where the thread split.
I have been trying to find an easier way to PXE boot an MD that does not have a PXE Boot ROM. I have been trying to make it easier than as described on the WIKI http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/GRUB_PXE_network_boot (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/GRUB_PXE_network_boot) for those who are not as familiar with Linux or Grub.
The advantage here is that the website (http://rom-o-matic.net/ (http://rom-o-matic.net/)) will spit out a pre-configured image for your particular NIC.
I have successfully downloaded an ISO file which I have burnt to CD and booted a test machine with. I have been trying to do this onto a USB memory stick but so far have been unsuccessful.
I will add a WIKI page for the success with the CD and then add to it when the USB Memory stick is working
Hi, Techstyle
I did not read the original thread, because I wasn't asked to in the post, and, I wanted to give an unbiased opinion about rom-o-matic.
At least from my perspective.
Rom-o-matic. I had an older P4 1G system that didn't PXE boot. I burnt a 3.5" floppy (needed to install a 3.5 drive).
It always booted, it always worked, it was quick (at least I didn't know any difference).
I was happy.
What commands/steps did you take to get from the downloading of the .dsk file to a working floppy disk boot? I will then add this when I create the WIKI page for this
Hi,
It was over a year/two ago but I'll go thru it again tomorrow, build another disk and re-post with instructions.
From what I remember (and it's probably outdated and doesn't support 1Gig E cards) the rom-o-matic site had O.K. instructions.
Cheers.
Hi,
Hope this is what you want....
The current homepage for Rom-o-matic is http://rom-o-matic.net/.
The current version is for an etherboot image generator is 5.4.4. http://rom-o-matic.net/etherboot/etherboot-5.4.4/contrib/rom-o-matic/
Before creating a boot disk it is necessary to obtain your NIC/ROM information.
[The following are linux based commands.]
From a terminal/console workspace issue a "lspci" command.
This will return a description of the pci hardware on your system in the following format:
bus:device.function class: vendor. etc.
Record the ethernet controller information for the device you wish to PXE boot from. For example: 00:11:0 Ethernet Controller: SIS 900 (rev 90)
Then issue a "lspci -n" command which shows the PCI vendor and device codes as numbers. For example: 00:11:0 0XXX: 1039:0900
Now go to the Rom-o-matic web page.
To create and download an Etherboot ROM image:
1. Choose NIC/ROM type:
PCI IDs for available NICs are documented here.
You need to know this if you are going to burn/flash a ROM image because
PCI IDs on the NIC and ROM must match. If you are making any other
kind of image, you only need to match the family (family:rom_name)
part of the identifier.
For our example we will enter Choose NIC/ROM type: sis900:sis900 -- [0x1039,0x0900]
2. Choose ROM output format:
For our example we will go with the default setting: Floppy bootable ROM image (.zdsk)
3. Step 3 is optional (used to customize ROM configuration)
4. To generate and download a ROM image press: Get ROM
To make a bootable floppy on a GNU/Linux system, put a formatted floppy in your floppy drive and do:
$ cat eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk > /dev/fd0
where "eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk" is where you stored your downloaded ROM image.
On a DOS/Windows system, use the RAWRITE program to write the .zdsk image to a formatted floppy.
RAWRITE is available on most GNU/Linux installation CDs or on the web.
I did " dd if=image-disk.zdsk of=/dev/fd0"
Cheers.
Quote from: pigdog on April 16, 2009, 02:40:36 PM
Hi,
Hope this is what you want....
The current homepage for Rom-o-matic is http://rom-o-matic.net/.
The current version is for an etherboot image generator is 5.4.4. http://rom-o-matic.net/etherboot/etherboot-5.4.4/contrib/rom-o-matic/
Before creating a boot disk it is necessary to obtain your NIC/ROM information.
[The following are linux based commands.]
From a terminal/console workspace issue a "lspci" command.
This will return a description of the pci hardware on your system in the following format:
bus:device.function class: vendor. etc.
Record the ethernet controller information for the device you wish to PXE boot from. For example: 00:11:0 Ethernet Controller: SIS 900 (rev 90)
Then issue a "lspci -n" command which shows the PCI vendor and device codes as numbers. For example: 00:11:0 0XXX: 1039:0900
Now go to the Rom-o-matic web page.
To create and download an Etherboot ROM image:
1. Choose NIC/ROM type:
PCI IDs for available NICs are documented here.
You need to know this if you are going to burn/flash a ROM image because
PCI IDs on the NIC and ROM must match. If you are making any other
kind of image, you only need to match the family (family:rom_name)
part of the identifier.
For our example we will enter Choose NIC/ROM type: sis900:sis900 -- [0x1039,0x0900]
2. Choose ROM output format:
For our example we will go with the default setting: Floppy bootable ROM image (.zdsk)
3. Step 3 is optional (used to customize ROM configuration)
4. To generate and download a ROM image press: Get ROM
To make a bootable floppy on a GNU/Linux system, put a formatted floppy in your floppy drive and do:
$ cat eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk > /dev/fd0
where "eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk" is where you stored your downloaded ROM image.
On a DOS/Windows system, use the RAWRITE program to write the .zdsk image to a formatted floppy.
RAWRITE is available on most GNU/Linux installation CDs or on the web.
I did " dd if=image-disk.zdsk of=/dev/fd0"
Cheers.
Hi Pigdog,
I've been trying to ROM burn my Netgear GA311 PCI NIC card per the instructions at http://etherboot.org/wiki/romburning -- I used the http://rom-o-matic.net/ and I chose the ROM output as an USB disk image and I have the ROM image on a USB drive.
The next step says to:
Burning the image into ROMTo burn the image file into ROM, you will need to use a utility specific to your network card. Instructions are available for:
*
Most Intel adapters
*
Broadcom 57xx based adapters (tg3)
*
QEMU option ROM
*
VirtualBox LAN boot ROM
This is where I got stuck. I did a search for gPXE in Linuxmce forums and found this post.
I'm clueless on where to go from here. I'd really appreciate your help!
thx,
Speedyone :)
I don't have much to add to this thread, other than when I was using a SOYO motherboard, I had to use a rom-o-matic bootdisk to get the nic to pxe boot:
http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php/SOYO_P4RC350
Hi speedyone,
I don't really think you want to over-write the ROM on your Netgear GA311 PCI NIC.
Now if you followed the instructions on ROM-O-Matic and you created a proper USB stick image for your PCI NIC then that's it.
You put the USB stick into a port on your PC.
You set the BIOS to boot from the USB stick - if the BIOS has this option. You might have to enable USB function somewhere else first.
Then you boot with the USB installed, as the BIOS first choice (only choice) boot disk and if it was (PXE boot image) created properly your PCI NIC should then PXE boot.
Is there a reason why you didn't just make a 3.5" floppy ROM-O-Matic boot disk?
If your BIOS doesn't support USB boot this would be your simple answer.
Did you look at this wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/GRUB_PXE_network_boot?
Cheers.
Speedy,
I have been unable to get the USB stick working from the instructions given on the ROM-O-Matic website. I do have the image on CD and boot from this on one machine (has no floppy) and pigdog boot's from a floppy on one of his.
if you just boot from the floppy/USB/CD there should be no need to flash your NIC's ROM. This is easier IMHO than the instructions in the GRUB_PXE wiki page especially if you don't know Linux very well
Hi guys,
Thanks for clearing this up for me.....I'm almost there.
Remember I was trying to get my PCI NIC card up and running in my windows machine. Well, I've stopped the practice and put my netgear GA311 PCI NIC in my MD.
I installed a DVD drive in my MD and booted from the Ubuntu CD and got to a terminal command window. From there I did the lspci and found my PCI card identification. Which of course is now a different PCI card identification than when this card was in my windows machine. Along way around the block.......but hey that's what learning is all about.
My MD is telling me that my PCI ID is RTL8169:10ec8169 - (10ec,8169).
The problem now is that http://rom-o-matic.net/. does not list this card specifically....it comes close with a r8169:10ec8169 -(10ec,8169).
Am I now challenged with "building from source" per http://etherboot.org/wiki/download?
I only chose the USB stick instead of a floppy because I currently don't have a floppy drive installed in the MD. If I trouble with the USB stick, I'll install a floppy drive in the MD and go from there.
thanks so much!
Speedy :)
Hi speedyone,
The lspci gives info like bus:device.function class: vendor. etc.
In your case it said something like ...
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
Then using the bus id and rev the lspci -n said 00:0a.0 0200: 10ec:8169 (rev a10)
So your Netgear GA311 PCI NIC uses a Realtec chipset.
NIC cards can have a brand name like MSI, ASUS, SONY, RCA, NETGEAR, etc but the actual device chipset could be Realtec, Broadcomm, etc.
The RTL8169 is the (10ec,8169) choice listed by ROM-O-Matic.
This is what you want to build your boot disk against.
Cheers.
Hi Pigdog,
I've put a floppy drive in my MD and I copied the the pxe boot image from rom-o-matic on to a floppy disk. My MD will not boot from the floppy. It says it is not bootable. Do I have to add something else to floppy disk besides the pxe boot image file?
I'm almost about to go buy a new motherboard that will feature pxe booting. But then I'm afraid that I'll still have the issue I had when I was using my windows machine with pxe booting capabilities and that was "ETH0 - no link during initialization".
I feel like I'm so close yet so far away!
speedyone :)
I had a similar problem when trying to make the USB drive work.
Did you just copy the file across or did you follow pigdog's instructions? As below:
QuoteTo make a bootable floppy on a GNU/Linux system, put a formatted floppy in your floppy drive and do:
$ cat eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk > /dev/fd0
where "eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk" is where you stored your downloaded ROM image.
On a DOS/Windows system, use the RAWRITE program to write the .zdsk image to a formatted floppy.
RAWRITE is available on most GNU/Linux installation CDs or on the web.
I did " dd if=image-disk.zdsk of=/dev/fd0"
I used the CD version which is an ISO file and then I used Sonic Record Now! on a windows box to burn the image.
From what you have said it would not boot at all (like mine when I tried it) rather than it booted and then took a dump becasue it found the wrong NIC. So it seems your struggle is getting it burnt to the media or getting you mobo to boot from that media. judging by my experience it is burning it to media. This is where I struggled with the USB drive and the original point to this thread
Hi Techstyle,
I think you're on the right track. Based on what you said, my problem right now is getting the media burnt properly becasue I did not follow all of Pigdog's instructions. I just copied the rom-o-matic file over to the floppy disk.
Thanks for reminding me of all the instructions!
I'll let you know how I do.
Kind regards,
Speedyone :)
Hi speedyone,
To quote your earlier post...
"The problem now is that http://rom-o-matic.net/. does not list this card specifically....it comes close with a r8169:10ec8169 -(10ec,8169)."
... if you go a little further down the list in ROM-O-Matic there is a choice of RTL8169:10ec8168.
If you are building against r8169 that's is why your floppy is crashing.
Cheers.
HI Pigdog,
I'm on the the very first link in rom-o-matic (http://rom-o-matic.net/gpxe/gpxe-git/gpxe.git/contrib/rom-o-matic/) and I'm not seeing the RTL 8169....from what I'm seeing, the RTL series only goes to RTL 8139 and never gets to the RTL 8169 series? Am I missing something?
thx,
speedyone :)
Quote from: Techstyle on May 03, 2009, 07:11:48 AM
I had a similar problem when trying to make the USB drive work.
Did you just copy the file across or did you follow pigdog's instructions? As below:
QuoteTo make a bootable floppy on a GNU/Linux system, put a formatted floppy in your floppy drive and do:
$ cat eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk > /dev/fd0
where "eb-5.4.4-yournic.zdsk" is where you stored your downloaded ROM image.
On a DOS/Windows system, use the RAWRITE program to write the .zdsk image to a formatted floppy.
RAWRITE is available on most GNU/Linux installation CDs or on the web.
I did " dd if=image-disk.zdsk of=/dev/fd0"
I used the CD version which is an ISO file and then I used Sonic Record Now! on a windows box to burn the image.
From what you have said it would not boot at all (like mine when I tried it) rather than it booted and then took a dump becasue it found the wrong NIC. So it seems your struggle is getting it burnt to the media or getting you mobo to boot from that media. judging by my experience it is burning it to media. This is where I struggled with the USB drive and the original point to this thread
Techstyle,
I also used the CD ISO file and I used the r8169:10ec8169 -(10ec,8169) file and not my actual (which is the RTL 8169 --ROM-o-matic doesn't have a listing that I could find for the RTL 8169).... Anyways, I got the MD to boot off the CD with the message that "we annouced ourselves to the router".
I just walked out to my MD and saw that it had rebooted and went through it's startup, but never got the MD launched.
I think I'm it that crash mode that Pigdog talked about due to the incorrect gPXE file. I probally need to find the RTL8169 series file or get another brand of PCI NIC card.
Any thoughts?
thx,
Speedyone
The GPXE NIC listing gives you two choices from the Realtek family to boot from.
However, if you got the we announce ourselves to the router message you have obviously PXE booted!
So now via webadmin from your Core you can check to see if a MD was created under Media Directors, or,
from the command line look at usr/pluto/diskless directory to see if you have a number there.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have a core/hybrid there will be a number associated with the Core MD.
If you have a CORE/Hybrid and a second MD you will have 2 numbers. A Standalone Core + separate MD = 1 number in diskless directory.
If you have MD in diskless directory for your new MD and webadmin show a MD entry in media directors then you have a possible architecture mixmatch.
What is the type of cpu for the MD? Intel? AMD? 32-bit/64 bit?
Your MD problem could also be related to your default display setting.
See http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3931.0
There's a start.
Cheers.
So is the device in a reboot loop?
if it is you should find out if fearingsept got around his problem in this (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=5782.0 (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=5782.0)) post.
I think like Pigdog says check the architecture is correct on the MD page of webadmin, if it isn't change it and then update and rebuild the orbiter.
Did you hit the 'setup diskless MD' button on the MD page before you booted your MD? If you did, You do not want to do this the button is leftover from previous versions and is not required now. Just start it up.
Quote from: pigdog on May 03, 2009, 07:41:01 PM
The GPXE NIC listing gives you two choices from the Realtek family to boot from.
However, if you got the we announce ourselves to the router message you have obviously PXE booted!
So now via webadmin from your Core you can check to see if a MD was created under Media Directors, or,
from the command line look at usr/pluto/diskless directory to see if you have a number there.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have a core/hybrid there will be a number associated with the Core MD.
If you have a CORE/Hybrid and a second MD you will have 2 numbers. A Standalone Core + separate MD = 1 number in diskless directory.
If you have MD in diskless directory for your new MD and webadmin show a MD entry in media directors then you have a possible architecture mixmatch.
What is the type of cpu for the MD? Intel? AMD? 32-bit/64 bit?
Your MD problem could also be related to your default display setting.
See http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3931.0
There's a start.
Cheers.
The MD cpu is an AMD 32-bit. Thanks for the tip on the dsiplay settings and the link for help. This came in handy as I was finally able to boot and run through the AV wizard---sweet success!!
After the wizard, the MCE launch manager does it thing and then I get back to a black screen with a white arrow that I can move around with my mouse...but I can't see the normal media director screen.
Any ideas?
thx,
speedyone :)
Hi speedyone,
Your architecture type should be i386. It probably is.
The normal MD screen will be the flickr background and menu bar if you chose UI2 medium or UI2 alpha.
Your problem may be related to your video setting.
Did you set UI2? If so try UI1 to start. You won't get the fancy eye candy but we will eliminate some other (possible xorg.conf) problems.
What is your video card?
Hi Pigdog,
I'm so happy!!!! my MD is up and running "the talking lady"!!!
I did set to UI2 and moved it to UI1 and this solved the problem. My video card is a "EVGA pci 512MB DDR2-8400GS".
Now all I need to get is an audio adapter that comes from my mother board audio port to the input port on my TV. I'm guessing that these are a common adapter that I can get at the store today?
I'll keep you posted.
I can't say thank you enough for all the help you and Techstyle have been!!! It's truly amazing!! What great people you are!! You both spend a lot of your time & effort helping clueless strangers like myself!! What a wonderful world it is indeed!!!
Kind regards,
speedyone
Hi speedyone,
Gee, that EVGA (nvidia) 8400gs should be able to do UI2 medium for sure and UI2 alpha if you really wanted.
I'm running a MSI NX8400GS @ UI2-alpha on my Aquos LCD no problem.
I'd try UI2 medium for sure. UI2 alpha can cause some problems with video playback in LMCE variant 710 (tearing).
Glad to hear you're running anyway.
Cheers
Hi Pigdog,
I am up and running!!!
I'm also surprised about the (nvidia) 8400gs. This is a pci video adapter and not a pci express adapter. My old IWill MB doesn't support pci express. None the less, I currently have the video adapter in the 3rd or 4th pci slot on the MB. I'm going to move it to the first slot, just to see if that would make a difference.
The MD is connected to my TV via "S" video. It's not very easy to read or see the MD menu.
I'll have to play with this.
Thanks again,
Speedyone :)
Hi speedyone,
I've got a nvidia 6200 PCI card hooked up to a RCA Proscan 35" CRT via S-Video.
It's configured at 640x480 NTSC-M UI2.
Graphics will not be that good because of the nature of the TV beast. It (a CRT TV) only has so many lines of resolution.
Movies, photos etc will look good but trying to use the KDE desktop for web browsing, or graphics, will not.
Cheers.
Thanks for the reply thus saving me a big headache and time trying to improve my TV graphics which is not possible on my "old style" TV.
Kind regards,
Speedyone