Answers on booting LTSP clients

[Eamonn Sullivan]

I'll just to document how I solved the problem of booting clients with
Breezy's LTSP, in case anyone is interested. I'll also put some of
this on the wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThinClientHowto).

On the IBM ThinkPad, choose Intel Pre-boot Execution Environment (PXE)
in the BIOS options, *not* boot from LAN, and it comes right up. You
need to be connected via a wire, not wireless. There is some work
going on to boot clients via wireless cards (see
http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WirelessLtsp), but I haven't
tried it yet.

On the Windows desktop -- an HP Pavilion 423.uk -- nothing happened
when I choose in the BIOS to boot from the LAN (it just booted into
Windows from the hard disk as normal). I suspect this is because the
built-in network card doesn't have PXE in ROM. The solution was to
create a boot floppy or CD (I don't have any floppy disks, and haven't
in years, so used the CD) on this site: http://www.rom-o-matic.net/

I picked the latest version, chose my network card in the long list of
supported card and it generates a custom ISO (128K) that I downloaded
and burned.

The performance is at least as fast as connecting via VNC and it's a
lot simpler to explain to my kids (just put this CD in and reboot,
then log in as normal). Sound doesn't work on the client, but I see on
the LTSP wiki (http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/Sound) that it
should work, so I'll work on that next.

Cheers to the developers! Very well done. My mind is already churning
on some interesting side projects using this feature. For example, I
could buy (cheap on eBay) a thin client or build one myself to add
another PC cheaply in the kids' bedroom...

-Eamonn