Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Netboot.me -- will it work on EeePC 901?

Just came across Netboot.me yesterday and it sounds very interesting being a means to network boot to a variety of Linux and BSD OSes as well as some diagnostic tools.
I've been looking for a way to get FreeBSD to work on this little computer but was unable to do so by the traditional methods.
Unfortunately, the most straightforward way to get this working didn't work for me apparently due to non-recognition of my Ethernet card.
However, the forum is currently very active and I was able to get a huge amount of help from this thread.
So eventually I was directed to a way to get around the Ethernet card problem which involved the following (see thread for more details and explanations):
Boot the EeePC 901 and hit F2 when the EeePC screen shows up. In the BIOS screen that shows up scroll across to the Boot Tab.
Under Boot Drive priority , enable OnBoard LAN Boot ROM. Then F10 to save and exit. Reboot and go to BIOS again (F2). Now in the boot drive priority list should be an additional option called Network: Atheros Boot Agent. Set this to the first in the list.
Now under the Hard Disk drive listing, (having inserted a usb-key with netboot.kpxe [see thread] before starting the boot), place the usb-key to the top of the list.
Now boot and after 1-2 minutes you should see, on a new screen, a prompt to either wait or hit any key to continue. Choose this latter as waiting brings up the Graphical menu which doesn't work right now on this machine.
In the Netboot.me menu that shows up choose Text Menu (as for me nonme of the others are of any use right now).
As I detail in the thread, while I was able to do a MemTest86 from the tools menu none of the OS options did anything other than error out.
However, as I'm getting an awful lot of help on this, progress is likely so check in later.

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