discuss: [Proposal] PXE Server HOWTO
Subject:
Re: [Proposal] PXE Server HOWTO
From:
Jason Bechtel ####@####.####
Date:
29 Jan 2002 10:38:23 -0000
Message-Id: <3C567BA5.3040200@iig.uni-freiburg.de>
Peter,
Comments below interspersed...
####@####.#### wrote:
> My comment is that these are features of net booting in general and
> *not* PXE per se. One of my contributions will be a section noting that
> PXE is *not* synonymous with net booting, any more than the BIOSen we
> find in our motherboards are the only way to initialise hardware, and
> providing references on how to avoid PXE altogther, such as Etherboot
> and LinuxBIOS. See www.linuxbios.org to learn how irrelevant Phoenix,
> Award, AMI, etc products are to Linux.
I'm glad someone will be doing this. (1) There needs to be a clear
explanation of *exactly* what PXE is and does and not just what it
happens to be used (or abused) for. (2) It needs to be put into the
context of the Linux world. Clearly there are reasons for Linux users
to avoid PXE if possible, but if they are stuck with it (employer
already has 800 workstations with PXE) then they need to know what they
can do with it or how to get around it.
> PXE is just a spec for one way - Intel's way, now adopted by other
> hardware vendors - to do net booting. A way to add clunky[*] slow[*]
> buggy[*] network functions to a clunky[*] slow[*] buggy[*] BIOS. The
> point of PXE for most Linux users - which therefore should, IMHO, be the
> focus of a LDP PXE howto - is that, like the BIOS, it's what we are
> stuck with when we take a new system out of the box.
As long as you can back up your [*]'s, as you say you can, then I think
it would be fine to include such material and personal comments
regarding the technology. But as more people migrate to Linux and seek
out documentation, I'm not sure what would be better for them. I expect
my documentation to be unbiased (except that it is necessarily from a
Linux perspective) and objective. I just want to avoid a HOWTO that
winds up embodying one person's view and excluding options that some
users might be looking for, however proprietary-bound and myopic those
options may be.
> A coherent body of LDP docs on booting in general, hardware support,
> DHCP/TFTP, backup + recovery and so on should rightly include a PXE
> howto. An LDP document should *not* imply that PXE is a desirable way of
> network booting or (worse) that LDP (or the Linux project or Linus or
> any related open source person or body) in any way recommends it. I hope
> that the LDP reviewers would not let such a suggestion (or even a phrase
> that might be construed as such by Intel's PR department) into a LDP
> doc. Utopia is as free of PXE and BIOS vendors as it is of M$.
I agree. I think the doc can be written from the perspective of "No one
recommends this and it's a really bad idea, but here's what you can do
if you're stuck with this technology like some of us" and still provide
a useful informational HOWTO. In fact, more than half of the document
could be dedicated to eliminating PXE and preaching about LinuxBIOS as
long as the rest of the document still provides actual PXE help.
Jason
