Netboot with Tftpd32

mastermosley · Jan 26, 2009

I'm trying to install debian on my old dell computer. Its a Dell Dimension V350 pentium 2 350mhz processor, 128mb of ram but the cd rom is broken. I noticed in the bios it says Network Boot as a boot device.

I'm trying to follow the instructions on Preparing Files for TFTP Net Booting but using Tftpd32 and I don't understand how to set it up. How do I do this?

mastermosley · Jan 26, 2009

or I have a blank hardrive and I can put anything I need on it could I boot that way?

BoredOutOfMyMind · Feb 1, 2009

I have not installed Debian, but I have a harddrive with Ubuntu that I can swap from drive to drive and at boot, it finds the hardware and boots.

Video card will be your biggest woe with this method. The newer versions of Debian do solve this better.

My favored Debian based distro is Ubuntu, and Linux Mint is a close second.

Someone else may chime in on Debian itself.

plodr · Feb 2, 2009

128mb of ram
Click to expand...

That might cause a problem.
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch03s04.html.en
I looked at Vector Linux, which is good for old computers with little RAM
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux...linux/docs/miscellaneous/version_table_2.html
and the versions that have apps (SOHO) single office/home office require 256MB of RAM.

Either add more RAM or look to something like puppy.
http://www.puppylinux.org/wiki/hardware/general/minreq

Here's a How To for installing without a bootable CD-ROM or floppy
http://puppylinux.org/wiki/how-tos/general/installingpuppyinmsdos

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Netboot with Tftpd32

mastermosley Sergeant

mastermosley Sergeant

BoredOutOfMyMind Picabo, ICU

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member