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Re: [LUG] Net install (first timer)

 

On 20/08/13 20:46, Daniel Robinson wrote:
> This has all become far too complicated!  - Shall I just burn a disk and be
> done with it!
>

No! You'll learn nothing that way!

Write a USB installer (what does "burn a disk" mean these days? Some
kind of obsolete practice from last decade?) and get your favourite
Debian or whatever running on it, along with a full virtualization
platform of two of your choosing (KVM and VirtualBox I'd imagine).

Make sure to flash the BIOS fully up to date and check all the firmware
revs, even on your network card and disks, etc and 'burn it in', fully
maxed out for 6+ hours. After that, it's ready for service.

Providing it's up to the job of running a VM or two, then just carry on
as before, but try setting up your new install server as a VM instead.
You can test if it works on either yet another VM from any host on your
network, or any of the physical machines you've got that can PXE boot.
My boot/install server here is an Ubuntu Server LTS instance running on
KVM by they way. Works like a champ for booting physical or virtual
boxes on the same LAN.

Of my links, just read this one: it's pretty concise and on first
glance, looks like exactly what I'd do.

http://funwithlinux.net/2013/01/debian-wheezy-pxe-server/


It's not rocket science, but PXE booting is pretty in-depth - expect a
couple of mistakes initially while you get it all smoothed out.

Regards

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