Re: Cannot boot from floppy disk

On Apr 28, 2014, at 08:28 , Dirk Heinrichs <[email protected]> =
wrote:

> Am Montag 28 April 2014, 04:58:15 schrieb Miod Vallat:
>=20
>> The BeBox doesn't even have an on-board Ethernet interface.
>=20
> Netbooting can also be a feature of the NIC. Remember the times when =
you could=20
> buy network boot (e)eproms which you could plug into your NIC?

That's a PC (x86) BIOS thing: PXE boot; the BeBox is PowerPC-based, and =
(presumably) had its own unique firmware (though if Be, Inc. had been =
sensible, they would have used IEEE 1275 Open Firmware). Though you =
could make an argument that NIC driver F-code for Open Firmware (which =
was located on the NIC expansion card) is equivalent.

It's also not unheard of for systems without built-in Ethernet =
interfaces to nonetheless have firmware that knows how to netboot from =
certain supported Ethernet chips - the DEC Alpha PC164 motherboards were =
such: if you could put a DEC DE500-AA 10/100 Ethernet NIC (Based on the =
"tulip" 21140 chip) into one of the PCI slots, the SRM firmware would =
netboot through it.

But what I gather is that the answer for the BeBox is: no, not from =
firmware. Ergo, if you wanted to netboot a BeBox, you'd have to put a =
netboot second stage boot (with drivers for whatever Ethernet NIC you =
put in an expansion slot) onto a floppy or CD-ROM (or hard disk ...).

	Erik <[email protected]>