Re: Univeral Protocol Driver (using UNDI) in Linux

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>> Agreed. But still having a single driver for all the NICs would be
>> simply GREAT for my setup, in which all the PCs will be booted using
>> PXE only. So apart from performance / relilability issues, what are
>> the technical roadblocks in this?
> 
> Netboot, in the current world, could be done like this:
> 
> 1. Grab the PXE ROM code chip manufacturers offer in case your network card 
> does not support booting via PXE yet and write it to an EPROM which most 
> PCI network cards have a socket for
> 
> 2. Use PXELINUX, boot that with the help of the PXE ROM code
> 
> 3. Put all drivers needed into the kernel or initrd; or send out different 
> initrds depending on the DHCP info the PXE client sent. 
> 

There is a program called "ethersel" included with PXELINUX which can be 
used to send out different initrds depending on an enumeration of PCI space.

	-hpa