[Beowulf] Diskless booting - NIC BIOS

[Robert G. Brown]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2007, Ellis Wilson wrote:

Hey, Ellis.  IIRC, these days it is fairly difficult to get a NIC that
does NOT support PXE booting (very different from the case four or five
years ago where many still did not and you had to pay a premium price
for it).  But if you look up any specific card on its manufacturer's
website, it should tell you under the product's technical
specifications.  Name brand cards -- e.g. 3com or intel -- are nearly a
sure thing.  Or if it is really cheap ($10) no-name you can just buy one
and try it out.  If it PXE boots, you will usually be given a network
boot option that "appears" at boot time.  A REALLY old motherboard might
have difficulty with this, but most should not.

     rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu