Going Driveless

sevisehda · 07-09-2003, 04:58 AM

I've got some old equipment laying around and am contimplating making a driveless setup for an MP3/alarmclock/spare-cycle folding machine. I was planning on taking an old P4B(the original with sdr) and shoving in about a gig of ram. Then using either some USB thumbdrives or memory cards to hold a micro-linux kernal plus the software and MP3s. At startup the thumbdrives/memory cards would be loaded to a ramdisk for fast access times.

So maybe I should say going SS(Solid State) instead of driveless. Has anyone tried/heard about someone doing anything like this before. Thanks for any input/suggestions.

Boli · 07-09-2003, 06:13 AM

If you are wanting to head down the driveless route b/c of noise I would set up a file server and shove it in another room.

Although you would still need a drive in your main comp. (I think)

Maybe you could combine the ideas? use flash mem to boot the system... I'm pretty sure you can install an OS on a separte machine.

xerka · 07-09-2003, 10:01 AM

A few ideas on going driveless, I dont think you would really need a gig of RAM. One thing you could do is just use a livecd version of linux. For some of my computers I use morphix(http://morphix.sourceforge.net/modules/news/ ). They have a few different versions. The light version takes up the least space and still works pretty well. Once you burn on a cd you can then install it to a USB thumbdrive. I havent done it my self but I hear it will boot in like 5-10 seconds.
Or another option if you already have linux server going, you could set up a thinclient or I guess in your case a diskless client. The client would boot off the server and run through the server. I have a few of these at my house(whoever thought an old 486 compaq would ever be useful again???). To make these thinclients you would need to download LTSP from http://ltsp.org . Then, to boot from the network you would either need a bootable NIC or you can use a floppy and floppy drive. To make the bootable ROMS you can go to http://rom-o-matic.net/.
The second option is quite a bit more complicated but you can setup up multiple diskless clients. I have a small howto setup LTSP on REDHAT 9, but its still a work in progress. http://linux.xyrka.com/howto/howto-setupltsp.shtml There are also many useful docs on the ltsp site. If you have any question feel free to pm me or just reply in the post.

sevisehda · 07-12-2003, 03:51 AM

I've got the RAM PC133(old school I know), an old duron and some miscellansous memorysticks/thumbdrives. Now I'm looking for a MB that has onboard everything. I'll probobly go with the thumbdrives because the memory sticks would require a reader and that more stuff.

If anyone has any recomendations for a nice cheap MB that has onboard everything, socket A, PC133, and has some USB headers I'd greatly appreciate it.

Cova · 07-14-2003, 12:26 PM

I don't know of too many MB's that support booting from USB or other stuff like that - but I haven't played with too many really new MB's/BIOS's either. The standard way for building a disk-less box would be to boot from the network, which most reasonably recent MB's can do, and many older MB's will do with a decent NIC.

The really cheap way to do it that will work with virtually any MB / boot option is to put your micro-linux kernel on a floppy disk, and just embed the floppy about an inch inside the case so you can still put a drive-bay cover over it. From the floppy, create a RAM-disk, load the kernel into that, and then run the OS from the ramdisk. If you need to you can even save some config options back onto the floppy if you want to (eg. a name of a remote file server to get more OS modules from, MP3's from etc.)

bigben2k · 07-14-2003, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cova
I don't know of too many MB's that support booting from USB or other stuff like that - but I haven't played with too many really new MB's/BIOS's either

Dido. Wouldn't booting from a CD-ROM work?

sevisehda · 07-14-2003, 12:38 PM

I could boot from a CD-ROM but that would defeat a driveless comp. I know its possible to unplug a floppy drive from live computer(with skill of course). I've had thumbdriuves attached as I installed XP and they appeared on the 'which drive to install list'. I thought it was possible to boot from one if it had the OS.

xerka · 07-14-2003, 03:30 PM

I just checked 4 of my 6 semi recent computers and all of them can boot from USB. The OS wouldnt matter, you would have to go into bios and check what you can boot from. A thumbdrive wouldnt show up as normal ide hd.

MadHacker · 07-14-2003, 03:36 PM

another option would be too boot from network.
I don't do anything in Linux... I'm a windows guy myself.
but i imagine you could probly set up something to boot from network and then still have a machine that stores all your MP3's so your not limited to 128meg or so for MP3's.

Cova · 07-14-2003, 04:48 PM

It doesn't matter what the OS recognizes as far as drives, even during the install process - it will see everything it has drivers for. But the BIOS is responsible for loading the boot-loader from the first few sectors of disk, putting it into RAM, and running it (which then continues to read the rest of the OS from wherever it wants and run said OS) - so the BIOS is what needs to support your thumbdrive if you want to boot from it. It's easy to hit Del during post and check your board - if it supports it then this discussion doesn't really matter much as you have your solution.

If it doesn't support it (which I consider more likely), I personally like the Floppy-drive idea I posted above. I didn't mean to unplug it while the system is live, thats likely to fry something. It won't be a "true" diskless system this way, but it will appear that way to anyone that sees it. You leave the floppy in the drive 24/7 and just stash the drive completly inside the case and put a cover over the front. The floppy is only ever read from to load the OS and after that doesn't even need to be accessable from the OS (eg. if running linux you don't need to mount it anywhere) - it will never be used while the machine is actually running. You can even leave the floppy write-protected once you put the boot image on it if you wanted to. There are a few linux distributions designed to be used this way, which is where I got the idea from. Google should be able to find you some examples, if I remember right the distribution I am thinking of that does this is called something along the lines of Linux Router Project - they wanted to build linux routers/firewalls/home network sharing boxes/etc. without needing HD's in them.

leejsmith · 07-15-2003, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sevisehda
I've got the RAM PC133(old school I know), an old duron and some miscellansous memorysticks/thumbdrives. Now I'm looking for a MB that has onboard everything. I'll probobly go with the thumbdrives because the memory sticks would require a reader and that more stuff.

If anyone has any recomendations for a nice cheap MB that has onboard everything, socket A, PC133, and has some USB headers I'd greatly appreciate it.

i have a asus a7v-ml. it's socket a , pc133 built in everything and micro atx. do a scan on ebay thats where i found mine for only £25.

07-09-2003, 04:58 AM	#1
sevisehda Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2003 Location: NY Posts: 234	Going Driveless I've got some old equipment laying around and am contimplating making a driveless setup for an MP3/alarmclock/spare-cycle folding machine. I was planning on taking an old P4B(the original with sdr) and shoving in about a gig of ram. Then using either some USB thumbdrives or memory cards to hold a micro-linux kernal plus the software and MP3s. At startup the thumbdrives/memory cards would be loaded to a ramdisk for fast access times. So maybe I should say going SS(Solid State) instead of driveless. Has anyone tried/heard about someone doing anything like this before. Thanks for any input/suggestions.

07-09-2003, 10:01 AM	#3
xerka Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 107	A few ideas on going driveless, I dont think you would really need a gig of RAM. One thing you could do is just use a livecd version of linux. For some of my computers I use morphix(http://morphix.sourceforge.net/modules/news/ ). They have a few different versions. The light version takes up the least space and still works pretty well. Once you burn on a cd you can then install it to a USB thumbdrive. I havent done it my self but I hear it will boot in like 5-10 seconds. Or another option if you already have linux server going, you could set up a thinclient or I guess in your case a diskless client. The client would boot off the server and run through the server. I have a few of these at my house(whoever thought an old 486 compaq would ever be useful again???). To make these thinclients you would need to download LTSP from http://ltsp.org . Then, to boot from the network you would either need a bootable NIC or you can use a floppy and floppy drive. To make the bootable ROMS you can go to http://rom-o-matic.net/. The second option is quite a bit more complicated but you can setup up multiple diskless clients. I have a small howto setup LTSP on REDHAT 9, but its still a work in progress. http://linux.xyrka.com/howto/howto-setupltsp.shtml There are also many useful docs on the ltsp site. If you have any question feel free to pm me or just reply in the post. __________________ Folders: I've given up folding

07-14-2003, 03:30 PM	#8
xerka Cooling Savant Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Denver, CO Posts: 107	I just checked 4 of my 6 semi recent computers and all of them can boot from USB. The OS wouldnt matter, you would have to go into bios and check what you can boot from. A thumbdrive wouldnt show up as normal ide hd. __________________ Folders: I've given up folding

07-14-2003, 03:36 PM	#9
MadHacker Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2003 Location: Okotoks, A.B. Canada Posts: 726	another option would be too boot from network. I don't do anything in Linux... I'm a windows guy myself. but i imagine you could probly set up something to boot from network and then still have a machine that stores all your MP3's so your not limited to 128meg or so for MP3's. __________________ "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" - (Einstein)

07-09-2003, 06:13 AM	#2
Boli Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Blackburn / Dundee Posts: 451	If you are wanting to head down the driveless route b/c of noise I would set up a file server and shove it in another room. Although you would still need a drive in your main comp. (I think) Maybe you could combine the ideas? use flash mem to boot the system... I'm pretty sure you can install an OS on a separte machine.

07-12-2003, 03:51 AM	#4
sevisehda Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2003 Location: NY Posts: 234	I've got the RAM PC133(old school I know), an old duron and some miscellansous memorysticks/thumbdrives. Now I'm looking for a MB that has onboard everything. I'll probobly go with the thumbdrives because the memory sticks would require a reader and that more stuff. If anyone has any recomendations for a nice cheap MB that has onboard everything, socket A, PC133, and has some USB headers I'd greatly appreciate it.

07-14-2003, 12:26 PM	#5
Cova Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 247	I don't know of too many MB's that support booting from USB or other stuff like that - but I haven't played with too many really new MB's/BIOS's either. The standard way for building a disk-less box would be to boot from the network, which most reasonably recent MB's can do, and many older MB's will do with a decent NIC. The really cheap way to do it that will work with virtually any MB / boot option is to put your micro-linux kernel on a floppy disk, and just embed the floppy about an inch inside the case so you can still put a drive-bay cover over it. From the floppy, create a RAM-disk, load the kernel into that, and then run the OS from the ramdisk. If you need to you can even save some config options back onto the floppy if you want to (eg. a name of a remote file server to get more OS modules from, MP3's from etc.)

07-14-2003, 12:38 PM	#7
sevisehda Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2003 Location: NY Posts: 234	I could boot from a CD-ROM but that would defeat a driveless comp. I know its possible to unplug a floppy drive from live computer(with skill of course). I've had thumbdriuves attached as I installed XP and they appeared on the 'which drive to install list'. I thought it was possible to boot from one if it had the OS.

07-14-2003, 04:48 PM	#10
Cova Cooling Savant Join Date: May 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 247	It doesn't matter what the OS recognizes as far as drives, even during the install process - it will see everything it has drivers for. But the BIOS is responsible for loading the boot-loader from the first few sectors of disk, putting it into RAM, and running it (which then continues to read the rest of the OS from wherever it wants and run said OS) - so the BIOS is what needs to support your thumbdrive if you want to boot from it. It's easy to hit Del during post and check your board - if it supports it then this discussion doesn't really matter much as you have your solution. If it doesn't support it (which I consider more likely), I personally like the Floppy-drive idea I posted above. I didn't mean to unplug it while the system is live, thats likely to fry something. It won't be a "true" diskless system this way, but it will appear that way to anyone that sees it. You leave the floppy in the drive 24/7 and just stash the drive completly inside the case and put a cover over the front. The floppy is only ever read from to load the OS and after that doesn't even need to be accessable from the OS (eg. if running linux you don't need to mount it anywhere) - it will never be used while the machine is actually running. You can even leave the floppy write-protected once you put the boot image on it if you wanted to. There are a few linux distributions designed to be used this way, which is where I got the idea from. Google should be able to find you some examples, if I remember right the distribution I am thinking of that does this is called something along the lines of Linux Router Project - they wanted to build linux routers/firewalls/home network sharing boxes/etc. without needing HD's in them.

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