Myrosia Dzikovska said the following on 11/29/2010 11:23 AM:
Right. I guess my general take on this, I know all these options exist and are possible. But they require thinking through the issues to get them exactly right. Which contravenes purpose of the USB stick as an easy way to set things up and used. Looks like we are defining "easy" differently, but if I am to set up a permanent server serving kernels, and tie it to my mac address, or secure passwords, or whatever, then I'd rather wipe out my disk. We just have to agree to disagree on what constitutes and easier or simpler solution here ;-)
Indeed. I very, very much DO NOT want to wipe out what's on my laptop, since it contains my business accounts. However I do want to play with various other distributions And that laptop has an old bios and will not boot from USB under any circumstances. No way. As for setting up the PE server, it was a piece of cake. I already had DNS set up for for my LAN. Unpacking syslinux was one command Enabling tftp was easy. All I had to do then was alter some IP and MAC addresses in config files and rename a file -- it worked. The only "hard" bit, if you want to call it hard, was downloading the various "LiveCD" ISOimages and setting them up. Now I can download a "LiveCD" to my server and I don't need to burn it to a CD/DVD or any of that fiddly stuff to get it on a USB stick in the right place with all the MBR fiddles you are going though. Recall: the laptop in question WILL NOT BOOT from the USB stick. It has an old BIOS. This was easier for me than trying to find an archive of a newer BIOS and flashing it - something that if I got wrong rendered the laptop unusable, a situation I could not allow. Yes it was an modicum of effort, but once set up it is done for however many LiveCDs I want to try out. More to the point,it was probably less than you have expended trying to get that USB stick to work For me that is a more generic and re-usable solution. Any "not easy" is factored out, and the "simple" is drawing on the formulaic instructions of others. It is well documented and has a good support group/list. -- History knows no resting places and no plateaus. -- Henry Kissinger -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org