[Fwd: PXE is proprietary - what the heck is it doing as the default LTS install in Edubuntu or Ubuntu?]

[Jonathan Carter]

Hi

On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 12:12 +0200, Jane Weideman wrote:
> Only it is TOO BAD that you are using PXE...,  instead of the LTSP
> supported and recommended ETHERBOOT, for LTS clients to talk to the LTS
> Edubuntu Server!

Etherboot is possible under Edubuntu, you have a few options...

1) Etherboot now has PXE Emulation. Most new Etherboot images will boot
to PXE server happily. The Etherboot project is renaming itself to gPXE
soon, so even though the PXE implementation on your motherboard is
proprietary, the Etherboot project is already providing an open source
implementation of it, so if you don't want to use the proprietary PXE
environment, you're free not to, and use Etherboot instead.

2) You can make traditional Etherboot images work with Edubuntu. It
takes single minutes to do this, instructions are available from
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuLTSP/LTSPEtherbootSetup

> Here are some quotes from Disklessworkstations tech support as I tried
> to get them to support Edubuntu with their bootable network cards.
> 
> "We do not provide network cards with PXE only Etherboot. PXE is
> proprietary and requires a license to sell".

Ask them which version of Etherboot they supply. They should be able to
provide you an image with PXE emulation.

> So - when are you going to release a default kernel fix to Edubuntu and
> get rid of the proprietary PXE stuff?  Soon I hope.

Well, there's not proprietary "PXE stuff" inside Edubuntu. All the
Edubuntu code used to boot up a thin client is free software, and you
can also use Etherboot with PXE emulation to boot to Edubuntu, so the
need for any proprietary network booting firmware is eliminated already.

> It is my understanding that cooperation broke down between the *buntu
> folks doing LTS and the LTSP teams... and that the LTSP teams are saying
> that the *buntu LTS folks have taken some wrong turns and it seems that
> one of them (by not listening to their LTSP elders) is the default
> support of PXE instead of Etherboot.  It's no wonder that their LTS
> stuff only will support PIIs and 48 MB RAM as a suggested client!  Why
> didn't they do what the LTSP.org folks suggested?

Which LTSP.org folks would this be? Just yesterday, the founder and
current leader of the LTSP project talked about how much he loves
Ubuntu, and on the LTSP.org wiki, they acknowledge that the Ubuntu way
is probably the way forward for LTSP technologies (meukow LTSP). How did
you come to this understanding?

Thanks for your feedback. Remember that you can also subscribe to the
edubuntu-users list at http://lists.ubuntu.com, to get wider feedback on
Edubuntu issues.

regards
Jonathan