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From: Marty C. <md...@et...> - 2006-03-09 11:14:49
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On Mar 8, 2006, at 4:18 PM, Richard Bos wrote:
> Op woensdag 8 maart 2006 21:32, schreef Evan Hisey:
>> The only real problem with a pxe wireless is that none of the card
>> makers have considered this a desired option.
Actually, it's more subtle than that. For example, there is support
in Etherboot (which has PXE support) for prism-based PCI cards to
boot wirelessly. I have demonstrated it at LinuxWorld in the past,
and it's slow but it works. We also don't have easy ways to specify
SSIDs and various other parameters that would be desirable, but it is
possible, using specific PCI cards to boot wirelessly.
>> Nothing real fancy is
>> need other than a way to set the acces point for initial connection.
Well, it's a bit messier than that. See below
> thanks for you confirmation, it is what I thought already. Should
> we perhaps
> organize a coordinated effort to ask a network card manufacturer to
> add
> wireless pxe support to 1 of their cards. ... ...
The problem is that most wireless cards are really PCMCIA cards, and
whether you have a laptop or desktop, there is an extra interface
called a PCI to PCMCIA bridge that must be initialized before the
computer can talk to the wireless card.
The PXE driver in general has no idea which PCI to PCMCIA bridge is
in the computer it happens to be in. Have you ever noticed how late
in booting Linux that PCMCIA support is enabled? In order for
wireless booting, the BIOS must get involved and cooperate with the
PCMCIA card. It must initialize the PCMCIA to PCI bridge, and the
driver has to know where to probe. The PXE loader could do this, but
it's not trivial to do, since you'd have to put PCMCIA support in the
driver and probe.
Now, there is a company that sells PXE on a disk for various adapters:
http://www.argontechnology.com/product.aspx/cid1/22
They also sell adapters:
http://www.argontechnology.com/product.aspx/cid1/103
including a PCMCIA adapter that does PXE, so they must have limited
PCMCIA support to find the PCMCIA card and initialize it.
Unfortunately, it's not wireless.
Heck, they even sell Etherboot ROMS (clearly an old version without
PXE support):
http://www.argontechnology.com/product.aspx/cid1/102/cid2/65
The problem is that they don't seem to mention Etherboot is GPL'ed,
and there is no obvious way to download the source for the code in
the ROMs, so I think they may not be in compliance with the GPL, and
since Etherboot supports PXE now, their $10 PXE on a disk things seem
a lot more pricey...
Now, there may be another way to go. There is a company that makes a
really cool adapter the plugs into an Ethernet port on a workstation,
and then does wireless. Here's a link to that:
http://macsense.com/product/broadband/wua800.html
With this device, I bet I could set up a thin client with Etherboot
or PXE, let it use its regular Ethernet port to boot from, and have
this box handle all the wireless stuff for me. You can configure it
with SSIDs and various other parameters, and the client machine has
no idea what's going on.
I'm so intrigued, I just ordered one to test. With one of these, I
might be able to turn any thin client into a wireless thin client.
Anyway, I just wanted to put a few ideas out there. I hope some of
this is interesting and useful and will stimulate some conversation.
Marty
--
Try: http://rom-o-matic.net/ to make Etherboot images instantly.
Name: Marty Connor
US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827;
Cambridge, MA 02139; USA
Voice: (617) 491-6935; Fax: (617) 491-7046
Email: md...@et...
Web: http://www.etherboot.org/
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