Network not detected on boot from usb-key

[PaulFXH]

Hi,
I'm trying to use Netboot.me on a EeePC 901 which has a Attansic
Technology Corp. L1e Gigabit Ethernet Adapter ethernet card.
Following the instructions, I dd'ed the downloaded netboot.usb to a 1
GB usb-key.
However, on booting to the usb-key it seems that no network devices
were detected as the message "no more network devices" appeared
without apparently having detected any at all.
The subsequent download failed for obvious reasons.
If I type "ifopen eth0" it tells me "eth0: no such interface".
Anything obviously wrong in what I'm doing?

[Nick Johnson]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 6:18 PM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,
I'm trying to use Netboot.me on a EeePC 901 which has a Attansic
Technology Corp. L1e Gigabit Ethernet Adapter ethernet card.
Following the instructions, I dd'ed the downloaded netboot.usb to a 1
GB usb-key. 

However, on booting to the usb-key it seems that no network devices
were detected as the message "no more network devices" appeared
without apparently having detected any at all.

It sounds like this network card isn't supported, unfortunately. Are you able to obtain the PCI ID?

Supporting it is down to getting it supported in gPXE, unfortunately. The most common method seems to be modifying the corresponding Linux Kernel driver for gPXE.
 

The subsequent download failed for obvious reasons.
If I type "ifopen eth0" it tells me "eth0: no such interface".
Anything obviously wrong in what I'm doing?

It's called 'net0' in gPXE, but other than that, no, it's probably just an unfortunate lack of hardware support.
 

-Nick

[Nick Johnson]

One addendum: You can still use gPXE via DHCP, if you're prepared to set up your DHCP server appropriately (see http://netboot.me/gettingstarted), since gPXE will be able to use the built-in PXE's network support.

-Nick

[PaulFXH]

Thank you for the replies.
I looked for a net0 interface but it too was not recognized by "ifopen
net0".
My card is a Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 PCI-E Ethernet Controller
with an ID of 1026.
I'm very interested to try the DHCP option you suggested but it is an
area with which I am not familiar (although I know a little reading
wouldn't hurt).
Nevertheless, I followed the Getting Started instructions.
We have three computers on our network but only mine uses Linux (the
others run Windows with which I am not very familiar). So, I installed
dnsmasq on my computer (in Ubuntu).
Next I downloaded netbootme.kxpe and moved it to /var/lib/tftp (note
that the tftp directory did not exist so I just created it).
Then I added
enable-tftp
tftp-root=/var/lib/tftp
dhcp-boot=netbootme.kpxe
to the bottom of /etc/dnsmasq.conf.
However, now what? It's unclear to me what's the next step.
The Getting Started howto doesn't go any further than this.

On Sep 1, 2:51 pm, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:
> One addendum: You can still use gPXE via DHCP, if you're prepared to set up

> your DHCP server appropriately (seehttp://netboot.me/gettingstarted), since

> gPXE will be able to use the built-in PXE's network support.
>
> -Nick
>
>
>

> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 6:47 PM, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:

[Nick Johnson]

On Sep 1, 9:10 pm, PaulFXH <paulfxhack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for the replies.
> I looked for a net0 interface but it too was not recognized by "ifopen
> net0".
> My card is a Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 PCI-E Ethernet Controller
> with an ID of 1026.
> I'm very interested to try the DHCP option you suggested but it is an
> area with which I am not familiar (although I know a little reading
> wouldn't hurt).
> Nevertheless, I followed the Getting Started instructions.
> We have three computers on our network but only mine uses Linux (the
> others run Windows with which I am not very familiar). So, I installed
> dnsmasq on my computer (in Ubuntu).
> Next I downloaded netbootme.kxpe and moved it to /var/lib/tftp (note
> that the tftp directory did not exist so I just created it).
> Then I added
> enable-tftp
> tftp-root=/var/lib/tftp
> dhcp-boot=netbootme.kpxe
> to the bottom of /etc/dnsmasq.conf.
> However, now what? It's unclear to me what's the next step.

If you put netbootme.kpxe in /var/lib/tftp, you should just need to
boot your computer while connected to the network, and do whatever it
is you have to do on your computer to change the boot order to include
network boot. That'll either involve a setting in the bios, or
possibly just pushing a key such as F12 at the right time in the boot
process.

[PaulFXH]

Thanks for the reply.
OK, I figured out how to network boot the EeePC 901.
Booting seems to start off fine but then errors out with this message:
PXE E53: No boot filename received.
Googling around seems to suggest it's not seeing the DHCP server.
Indeed, this is not a surprise to me as dnsmasq is on Ubuntu on the
same machine so it can't even be running as Ubuntu hasn't been booted.
Therefore, it seems like I need dnsmasq running on one of the other
computers on the network -- both of which are unfortunately Windows
only.
Comments welcome as I'm in uncharted territory here.

[Nick Johnson]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 10:40 PM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the reply.
OK, I figured out how to network boot the EeePC 901.
Booting seems to start off fine but then errors out with this message:
PXE E53: No boot filename received.
Googling around seems to suggest it's not seeing the DHCP server.
Indeed, this is not a surprise to me as dnsmasq is on Ubuntu on the
same machine so it can't even be running as Ubuntu hasn't been booted.
Therefore, it seems like I need dnsmasq running on one of the other
computers on the network -- both of which are unfortunately Windows
only.
Comments welcome as I'm in uncharted territory here.

Do you have a DHCP server normally? Most likely, a DSL router? If so, is it running Linux (as far as you know?)

One other possibility is to try netbooting your Eee with the USB key you made inserted; when it fails to netboot, it will boot the USB key, which may be able to access the network driver left resident by the original PXE bootloader.

-Nick
 

[PaulFXH]

Thanks again for the reply.
I have a Dlink DI-524 router with a DHCP server. However, I'm unable
to find any indication as to whether or not it is Linux-based. But
some forum threads seem to indicate that it isn't.
On other hand, you final suggestion actually worked to a considerable
extent.
So, I additionally set the usb-key as the primary HDD boot device (but
the network boot still retained overall priority).
Then I booted and after the network boot attempt timed out apparently
it booted to the usb-key and this time a network was detected
(although it printed out so fast I couldn't actually read what was
provided).
Next it asked for any key to be pressed to continue. When pressed I
was brought to a Netboot.me menu.
The Graphics menu option brought me to a white screen without menu
options so this didn't work.
The text menu showed a variety of options. However, I was unable to
boot to any of the OSes. For example, when I tried TinyCore Linux, it
started to download a total of 1950 KB (or so) but stopped at 227 KB
with a Grub error 22.
I got exactly the same problem when I tried to boot to MicroCore and
MirOS.
However, the I was able to open MemTest86 from the Tools menu
perfectly and this worked fine.
Perhaps the error 22 arose because Grub on the usb-key is corrupted. I
considered reinstalling Grub on the key but was unable to mount the
only partition on the key in order to run Grub Setup. The problem here
was that I don't know what filesystem is on the key now. Perhaps you
could tell me.
Thanks

On Sep 1, 7:05 pm, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:

[Nick Johnson]

Hi Paul,

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 4:34 AM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks again for the reply.
I have a Dlink DI-524 router with a DHCP server. However, I'm unable
to find any indication as to whether or not it is Linux-based. But
some forum threads seem to indicate that it isn't.
On other hand, you final suggestion actually worked to a considerable
extent.
So, I additionally set the usb-key as the primary HDD boot device (but
the network boot still retained overall priority).
Then I booted and after the network boot attempt timed out apparently
it booted to the usb-key and this time a network was detected
(although it printed out so fast I couldn't actually read what was
provided).
Next it asked for any key to be pressed to continue. When pressed I
was brought to a Netboot.me menu.

Excellent!
 

The Graphics menu option brought me to a white screen without menu
options so this didn't work.

Not so excellent, though it makes me glad I added the text-based preboot menu.
 

The text menu showed a variety of options. However, I was unable to
boot to any of the OSes. For example, when I tried TinyCore Linux, it
started to download a total of 1950 KB (or so) but stopped at 227 KB
with a Grub error 22.

Are you able to copy the exact message, please?
 

I got exactly the same problem when I tried to boot to MicroCore and
MirOS.

Does it always stop at the same point in the download?
 

However, the I was able to open MemTest86 from the Tools menu
perfectly and this worked fine.
Perhaps the error 22 arose because Grub on the usb-key is corrupted. I
considered reinstalling Grub on the key but was unable to mount the
only partition on the key in order to run Grub Setup. The problem here
was that I don't know what filesystem is on the key now. Perhaps you
could tell me.

It actually doesn't have a filesystem - the partition contains the raw boot image for gPXE and nothing else. There's no grub bootloader on the key either, so I doubt this is the issue.

-Nick
 

[PaulFXH]

OK, I did a lot of checking what's happening here and I can provide
some further details.
The Netboot.me menu that shows up shows four options which behave as
follows:

Graphical Menu
-->white screen. Hitting Tab brings up a box but this is empty.
Continually hitting Tab still brings up nothing.
Hitting Esc gives:
Grub Loading stage 1.5
Grub loading, please wait
Error 22
.........and that's it. Nothing further happens.

Boot a Configuration directly.....
-->Enter Configuration ID to boot (e.g. 3005)
Hitting Esc here gives
Error 22

Quit to gPXE command line
If I delay here, instead of hitting crtl-B, I again get an Error 22

Text menu
As I already mentioned, this seems to work fine up to a point.
If I try to download Tiny Core Linux, I get the following errors (note
that this is transcribed and may not be EXACTLY what appeared on the
screen, but it's certainly pretty close):

downloading http://static.netboot.me.nyud.tinycore/2.2/bzimage:
14 / 1947 kB
343 / 1947 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch http://static.netboot.me.nyud.tinycore/2.2/bzimage:
344 / 1947 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch menu.c32: Input/output error (0x1dc6039)
344 / 1947 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch http://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1
: Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Grub Loading stage1.5
Grub loading, please wait
Error 22

........and once again, that's as far as it goes.

I then restarted and this time tried to download OpenSUSE 11.1 (x86)
which attempt ended with the following error messages:

Could not fetch http://download.opensuse.org.nyud.net/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/boot/i386/loader/linux
: Error 0x3e11603b
0 / 0 kB Error 0x3e11603b
Could not fetch menu.c32 : Error 0x3e11603b
0 / 0 kB Error 0x3e11603b
Could not fetch http://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1
: Error 0x3e11603b
Grub Loading stage1.5
Grub loading, please wait
Error 22

So this time, it seems that nothing at all was downloaded for
OpenSUSE.
It looked very much like the network connection had been lost.
I then tried GParted (after rebooting) but once again this errored out
after downloading nothing. However, by quickly pressing Ctrl-B I was
brought to the gPXE command prompt where "autoboot" shows details of
the network connection so apparently it was still live even though
nothing was downloaded for GParted.
Unfortunately, no ping command is available to allow me to confirm the
network availability.

Any insights?

[Nick Johnson]

Here's what I think is happening:

- The grub errors you're seeing are from the grub bootloader on your computer, trying to load an OS after netboot fails.

- The download errors you're seeing are possibly due to CoralCDN - I'm experimenting with using it, but it doesn't really seem to be helping, alas.

I'll switch back from using CoralCDN to regular serving later today - hopefully you can try it then and it'll work.

-Nick

[Thomas Miletich]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 4:19 PM, PaulFXH<paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> OK, I did a lot of checking what's happening here and I can provide
> some further details.
> The Netboot.me menu that shows up shows four options which behave as
> follows:
>
> Graphical Menu
> -->white screen. Hitting Tab brings up a box but this is empty.
> Continually hitting Tab still brings up nothing.

Same thing happens for me too :(

This error code indicates a -EIO error returned from http.c in gPXE.
From a quick look at the source code this happens whenever the
webserver sends an invalid response.

>
> ........and once again, that's as far as it goes.
>
> I then restarted and this time tried to download OpenSUSE 11.1 (x86)
> which attempt ended with the following error messages:
>
> Could not fetch http://download.opensuse.org.nyud.net/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/boot/i386/loader/linux
> : Error 0x3e11603b
> 0 / 0 kB Error 0x3e11603b
> Could not fetch menu.c32 : Error 0x3e11603b
> 0 / 0 kB Error 0x3e11603b
> Could not fetch http://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1
> : Error 0x3e11603b
> Grub Loading stage1.5
> Grub loading, please wait
> Error 22

This is a -ENXIO from dns.c. This error happens whenever gPXE fails to
look up a DNS name, either because there is no valid DNS server or
because the DNS server is unable to resolve the name. Given the other
networking problems you seem to have, I suspect that the DNS server is
unreachable.

While there's no ping command in gPXE itself, you can ping the gPXE
booted machine from a different PC ( you can use 'show ip' in gPXE to
find out the IP address ). Also the gPXE command 'imgstat' could be
handy. It will tell you about any transmit or receive errors.

I suspect that all those problems come from the UNDI code we're using
not working properly, probably because you use it from a usb key
instead of having it booted over the PXE rom itself.

Thomas

[PaulFXH]

Thanks for the quick reply and the possibility of light at the end of
the tunnel.
I will certainly try it again when you make that change.
Is it possible to indicate when "later today" will be? Right now it's
11:40 where I am in Brazil.
Thanks

On Sep 2, 11:26 am, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:
> Here's what I think is happening:- The grub errors you're seeing are from
> the grub bootloader on your computer, trying to load an OS after netboot
> fails.
> - The download errors you're seeing are possibly due to CoralCDN - I'm
> experimenting with using it, but it doesn't really seem to be helping, alas.
>
> I'll switch back from using CoralCDN to regular serving later today -
> hopefully you can try it then and it'll work.
>

> -NickOn Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 3:19 PM, PaulFXH <paulfxhack...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > OK, I did a lot of checking what's happening here and I can provide
> > some further details.
> > The Netboot.me menu that shows up shows four options which behave as
> > follows:
>
> > Graphical Menu
> > -->white screen. Hitting Tab brings up a box but this is empty.
> > Continually hitting Tab still brings up nothing.
> > Hitting Esc gives:
> > Grub Loading stage 1.5
> > Grub loading, please wait
> > Error 22
> > .........and that's it. Nothing further happens.
>
> > Boot a Configuration directly.....
> > -->Enter Configuration ID to boot (e.g. 3005)
> > Hitting Esc here gives
> > Error 22
>
> > Quit to gPXE command line
> > If I delay here, instead of hitting crtl-B, I again get an Error 22
>
> > Text menu
> > As I already mentioned, this seems to work fine up to a point.
> > If I try to download Tiny Core Linux, I get the following errors (note
> > that this is transcribed and may not be EXACTLY what appeared on the
> > screen, but it's certainly pretty close):
>

> > downloadinghttp://static.netboot.me.nyud.tinycore/2.2/bzimage:

> > 14 / 1947 kB
> > 343 / 1947 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)

> > Could not fetchhttp://static.netboot.me.nyud.tinycore/2.2/bzimage:

> > 344 / 1947 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
> > Could not fetch menu.c32: Input/output error (0x1dc6039)
> > 344 / 1947 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)

> > Could not fetchhttp://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1

> > : Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
> > Grub Loading stage1.5
> > Grub loading, please wait
> > Error 22
>
> > ........and once again, that's as far as it goes.
>
> > I then restarted and this time tried to download OpenSUSE 11.1 (x86)
> > which attempt ended with the following error messages:
>
> > Could not fetch

> >http://download.opensuse.org.nyud.net/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/boot...

> > : Error 0x3e11603b
> > 0 / 0 kB Error 0x3e11603b
> > Could not fetch menu.c32 : Error 0x3e11603b
> > 0 / 0 kB Error 0x3e11603b

> > Could not fetchhttp://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1

[Nick Johnson]

The graphical menu should now be fixed for a lot of people for which it was broken.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 3:40 PM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply and the possibility of light at the end of
the tunnel.
I will certainly try it again when you make that change.
Is it possible to indicate when "later today" will be? Right now it's
11:40 where I am in Brazil.

Try now. :)

-Nick

[PaulFXH]

Now that is super-cool! Using the updated images, everything works
perfectly on the EeePC 901 despite having an unrecognized ethernet
card.
Well, I've only actually tested it on Tiny Core Linux and this works
fine. Plus the Graphical menu works great.
The only downside is that the download rate is very slow at about 16
KB/s which is only about 7% of my max rate. I've seen another thread
on this which I haven't yet read.
So, the two boot files for TC Linux add up to about 10 MB and that
takes about 10 minutes to download which is inconvenient.
Nevertheless, it does work so I'm going to test some more of the
available options.
Thanks a lot for all the help.
I'll probably write a howto on how to use Netboot.me on a EeePC 901 as
it's not completely straightforward but I'm sure this will be of major
interest to other 901 (and probably other EeePC models) users.
Please let me know if you have any objection to this as all of the
ideas were yours.

On Sep 2, 12:03 pm, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:
> The graphical menu should now be fixed for a lot of people for which it was
> broken.
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Nick Johnson]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 8:00 PM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now that is super-cool! Using the updated images, everything works
perfectly on the EeePC 901 despite having an unrecognized ethernet
card. 

Well, I've only actually tested it on Tiny Core Linux and this works
fine. Plus the Graphical menu works great.

Excellent!
 

The only downside is that the download rate is very slow at about 16
KB/s which is only about 7% of my max rate. I've seen another thread
on this which I haven't yet read.

A lot of this seems to be down to gPXE's TCP support. Decreasing latency will help with this - my next goal is to move static.netboot.me to S3, and then to add support for allowing users to upload to static.netboot.me (this latter bit I expect to be quite complicated to implement, alas).
 

So, the two boot files for TC Linux add up to about 10 MB and that
takes about 10 minutes to download which is inconvenient.
Nevertheless, it does work so I'm going to test some more of the
available options.
Thanks a lot for all the help.

No problem. :)
 

I'll probably write a howto on how to use Netboot.me on a EeePC 901 as
it's not completely straightforward but I'm sure this will be of major
interest to other 901 (and probably other EeePC models) users.
Please let me know if you have any objection to this as all of the
ideas were yours.

Please do! I saw what you've written already and posted via Twitter. :)

-Nick
 

[PaulFXH]

Just to update you on how things stand with regard to the operability
of Netboot.me on the EeePC 901. I've tried quite a few of the other
menu options and not all work. I haven't investigated exactly why they
don't work so I'll just present the facts here.
First, Tiny Core Linux, which was the first one I tried yesterday,
doesn't always boot. Last night I made several attempts to boot it but
it always stopped downloading the tinycore.gz after about 7500 KB of
the 8800 KB total. Nevertheless, this morning when I tried it again it
worked fine. Server problem?
Of the ones I tried, additionally MicroCore linux, HDT, MemTest86 and
Smart Boot Manager work fine. I also tried one of the Debian
installers and that seemed to be going fine although I didn't install
anything (very limited HDD space on 901).
However, neither Gparted nor Parted Magic boot nor does MirOS.
This latter gets as far as a boot prompt (boot>), adds some command
and then the screen turns black and stays black.
Parted magic bails out during the download of the initramfs with the
following message:
Downloading http://static.netboot.me/pmagic/4.4/initramfs : Input/
output error (0x1d0c6039)
28389/92728 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch menu.c32: Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
28389/92789 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch http://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1:

Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Grub Loading stage1.5
Grub loading, please wait
Error 22

Are these known problems or something peculiar to the EeePC 901?
On Sep 2, 4:21 pm, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:

> ...
>
> read more »

[Nick Johnson]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:43 PM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just to update you on how things stand with regard to the operability
of Netboot.me on the EeePC 901. I've tried quite a few of the other
menu options and not all work. I haven't investigated exactly why they
don't work so I'll just present the facts here.
First, Tiny Core Linux, which was the first one I tried yesterday,
doesn't always boot. Last night I made several attempts to boot it but
it always stopped downloading the tinycore.gz after about 7500 KB of
the 8800 KB total. Nevertheless, this morning when I tried it again it
worked fine. Server problem?

Depends when you tried it - it's now using Amazon CloudFront, which should work well from anywhere.
 

Of the ones I tried, additionally MicroCore linux, HDT, MemTest86 and
Smart Boot Manager work fine. I also tried one of the Debian
installers and that seemed to be going fine although I didn't install
anything (very limited HDD space on 901).
However, neither Gparted nor Parted Magic boot nor does MirOS.
This latter gets as far as a boot prompt (boot>), adds some command
and then the screen turns black and stays black.

GParted and Parted Magic are about 100MB each - how much ram does the 901 have?
 

Parted magic bails out during the download of the initramfs with the
following message:
Downloading http://static.netboot.me/pmagic/4.4/initramfs : Input/
output error (0x1d0c6039)
28389/92728 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch menu.c32: Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
28389/92789 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Could not fetch http://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1:

Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
Grub Loading stage1.5
Grub loading, please wait
Error 22

That's the download issue again - not parted magic itself.
 

Are these known problems or something peculiar to the EeePC 901?

Mostly peculiar to your computer - or to the network driver support, it seems.

-Nick
 

[PaulFXH]

Thanks for the reply.
I did these tests last night between about 01:00-03:00 London time or
20:00-22:00 New York time
I have tried TinyCore a few times today (I'm in Brazil) and never had
the problems I saw last night.
However, neither MirOS nor Gparted will boot showing exactly the
problems they showed last night.
Gparted looks like it might be a solvable problem as it boots to a
significant extent after downloading the two boot files (which,
incidentally, amount to about 10 MB rather than the 100 MB you
mentioned. Parted Magic is however close to 100 MB download).
Unfortunately, because the screen is scrolling so fast I am unable to
retain exactly what was printed out.
Even though an Internet connection is made on the initial boot of
Netboot.me (to IP 192.168.0.143 with gw 192.168.0.1), and the
bootfiles for Gparted are downloaded apparently without problem, the
boot fails seemingly because it cannot connect to http:/72.14.176.101/
Something-or-Other/.
After this failure, it tries to connect to netboot.me at 192.168.0.1
which provokes the message "nfsmount: need a path" repeatedly until
finally a Boot Fail error issues.
Any thoughts?

On Sep 3, 5:58 pm, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:43 PM, PaulFXH <paulfxhack...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Just to update you on how things stand with regard to the operability
> > of Netboot.me on the EeePC 901. I've tried quite a few of the other
> > menu options and not all work. I haven't investigated exactly why they
> > don't work so I'll just present the facts here.
> > First, Tiny Core Linux, which was the first one I tried yesterday,
> > doesn't always boot. Last night I made several attempts to boot it but
> > it always stopped downloading the tinycore.gz after about 7500 KB of
> > the 8800 KB total. Nevertheless, this morning when I tried it again it
> > worked fine. Server problem?
>
> Depends when you tried it - it's now using Amazon CloudFront, which should
> work well from anywhere.
>
> > Of the ones I tried, additionally MicroCore linux, HDT, MemTest86 and
> > Smart Boot Manager work fine. I also tried one of the Debian
> > installers and that seemed to be going fine although I didn't install
> > anything (very limited HDD space on 901).
> > However, neither Gparted nor Parted Magic boot nor does MirOS.
> > This latter gets as far as a boot prompt (boot>), adds some command
> > and then the screen turns black and stays black.
>
> GParted and Parted Magic are about 100MB each - how much ram does the 901
> have?
>
> > Parted magic bails out during the download of the initramfs with the
> > following message:

> > Downloadinghttp://static.netboot.me/pmagic/4.4/initramfs: Input/

> > output error (0x1d0c6039)
> > 28389/92728 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
> > Could not fetch menu.c32: Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)
> > 28389/92789 kB Input/output error (0x1d0c6039)

> > Could not fetchhttp://www.netboot.me/menu.gpxe?pxe=gpxe-custom&ver=0.1:

> ...
>
> read more »

[PaulFXH]

I forgot to mention in my last post that my EeePC 901 has 1 GB of RAM
which is expandable to 2 GB but I haven't done this yet.
BTW, I think it would be an error to assume that the EeePC 901 is very
limited in capacity and abilities. Although only 20 GB of HDD
(actually SSD) space is available, I actually have 5 OSes installed
and running successfully (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux and
Haiku).
Personally, I think the EeePC 901 is an amazing machine for its size
and price.

> ...
>
> read more »

[Nick Johnson]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:21 AM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the reply.
I did these tests last night between about 01:00-03:00 London time or
20:00-22:00 New York time
I have tried TinyCore a few times today (I'm in Brazil) and never had
the problems I saw last night.

Glad to hear it.
 

However, neither MirOS nor Gparted will boot showing exactly the
problems they showed last night.
Gparted looks like it might be a solvable problem as it boots to a
significant extent after downloading the two boot files (which,
incidentally, amount to about 10 MB rather than the 100 MB you
mentioned. Parted Magic is however close to 100 MB download).

The initial download is about 10MB, but it then downloads a ~90MB squashfs filesystem over the internet.
 

Unfortunately, because the screen is scrolling so fast I am unable to
retain exactly what was printed out.
Even though an Internet connection is made on the initial boot of
Netboot.me (to IP 192.168.0.143 with gw 192.168.0.1), and the
bootfiles for Gparted are downloaded apparently without problem, the
boot fails seemingly because it cannot connect to http:/72.14.176.101/
Something-or-Other/.

Sorry, that was down to a server misconfiguration on my part - fixed now. Parted Magic is a better tool anyway, though. ;)
 

[PaulFXH]

Thanks for the comments.
I just tried Gparted again and this time it boots and works perfectly.
What's even better is that the wget command during the boot downloads
the 90 MB squash.fs at 250 kB/s which is my max d/l rate (versus the
15 kB/s rate for the boot files).
Still a 17-minute boot but starting to look very usable. If only the
restricted d/l rates for the boot files could be increased...........

On Sep 4, 4:54 am, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:21 AM, PaulFXH <paulfxhack...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the reply.
> > I did these tests last night between about 01:00-03:00 London time or
> > 20:00-22:00 New York time
> > I have tried TinyCore a few times today (I'm in Brazil) and never had
> > the problems I saw last night.
>
> Glad to hear it.
>
> > However, neither MirOS nor Gparted will boot showing exactly the
> > problems they showed last night.
> > Gparted looks like it might be a solvable problem as it boots to a
> > significant extent after downloading the two boot files (which,
> > incidentally, amount to about 10 MB rather than the 100 MB you
> > mentioned. Parted Magic is however close to 100 MB download).
>
> The initial download is about 10MB, but it then downloads a ~90MB squashfs
> filesystem over the internet.
>
> > Unfortunately, because the screen is scrolling so fast I am unable to
> > retain exactly what was printed out.
> > Even though an Internet connection is made on the initial boot of
> > Netboot.me (to IP 192.168.0.143 with gw 192.168.0.1), and the
> > bootfiles for Gparted are downloaded apparently without problem, the
> > boot fails seemingly because it cannot connect to http:/72.14.176.101/

> > Something-or-Other/ <http://72.14.176.101/%0ASomething-or-Other/>.

> ...
>
> read more »

[Nick Johnson]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 11:37 AM, PaulFXH <paulfx...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the comments.
I just tried Gparted again and this time it boots and works perfectly.
What's even better is that the wget command during the boot downloads
the 90 MB squash.fs at 250 kB/s which is my max d/l rate (versus the
15 kB/s rate for the boot files).
Still a 17-minute boot but starting to look very usable. If only the
restricted d/l rates for the boot files could be increased...........

It's odd that you're still seeing such slow boot speeds, now that I'm hosting the files on CloudFront. What RTTs do you see pinging static.netboot.me?

-Nick

[PaulFXH]

Here's what I see pinging to static.netboot.me from Ubuntu on the
EeePC 901

5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 142.647/151.089/171.774/10.517 ms



On Sep 4, 8:15 am, Nick Johnson <arach...@notdot.net> wrote:

> ...
>
> read more »