Gero,
As ( I hope ) an impartial observer- having used both netboot and
etherboot
I shall make the following ( hopefully none flaming ) observations.
1. I will obviously always use netboot if Etherboot doesn't have a
driver for
the card I wish to use.
2. I will always use Etherboot if the card I wish to use is supported
because
a. Etherboot 4.0 seems MUCH quicker for me.
b. Etherboot 4.0 seems MUCH more reliable when performing tftp (
copes
very well with timeouts - whereas Netboot fails to boot on
occasion )
c. It is much smaller ( for obvious reasons )
3. Although the packet driver idea was a very good one you'll appreciate
that with
the future manufacturer support of packet drivers will wane ( unless
Russ keeps
it going - much respect to Russ Nelson ).
4. I think that the Linux driver idea is more pleasing to a fanatic of
the
"having the source" school. Also I'm happy that Linux is now
sufficiently
"mainstream" for manufacturers to produce ( or help with the
production of )
drivers for their new cards.
As with all projects which seem to have common goals I think you both
can learn from
your ideas/experiences.
Sincerely,
Andy Coulthurst.
I've been using linux since somewhere around 0.95 ( oh how happy I was
to get my first
wd8003 ! - now I hate using 10 Meg ethernet ).
Gero Kuhlmann wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Ken Yap <ken@nhj.nlc.net.au> wrote:
> > NILO is the project that will be the successor to Etherboot.
>
> After reading your NILO web page it looks to me that you are going to re-
> invent the wheel. Actually, I'm constantly developing netboot towards the
> same goals you defined for NILO, except GCC support for the bootrom (which
> I think to be unnecessary because as86/ld86/bcc are freely available tools
> like GCC etc., so there is no real limitation):
>
>.
>.
> precompiled kernel object modules. makerom can be extended to deal with the
> object format (the GNU bfd library is freely available) and link the network
> driver module with the wrapper to form a binary with a packet driver (or
> whatever else) interface... Actually, even if you don't join in, this seems
> to be a thought worthwhile of being followed on. If I only could find the
> time...
>
> gero.
>
> --
> Boy, men are pretty stupid sometimes, no? :-)
> - John Kuthe
> --
> Gero Kuhlmann, Hannover 0511/6497525 (Voice) gero@gkminix.han.de
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