🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes:
>
>	I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc,
>but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to
>boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s)
>should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the
>PC to be served by Unix NFS servers.
>

I have seen similar setup, where a PC has a Ethernet card and running SUN 
PC-NFS and connects to a SUN 3/60 workstation. That machine has a hard disk
but I don't see why you cannot do it with a floppy. You better make sure 
that your have a 1.2 MB or 1.44 MB floppy to house all the device drivers
and NFS programs though.

>	If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or
>words of wisdom, etc.
>
>	I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word,
>the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence
>it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when
>first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are
>all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to
>PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked
>drives.

If you type 'set' in DOS, you will see an entry called COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM
in your case. COMSPEC specifies which drive you boot up your machine from.
At the end of your autoexec.bat, if you put a line

	set comspec=e:\command.com (or whatever the network drive letter is)

I think MS Word will use that instead.

>
>	Any help or advice appreciated.
>
>	Ivan Warner
>	British Telecom Research Labs
>	Martlesham Heath
>	Ipswich
>	UK

Andy
-- 

_______________________________________________________________________________
Andy Sun                        | Internet: sun@me.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto, Canada   | UUCP    : csri.toronto.edu!me.utoronto.ca!sun
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering | BITNET  : sun@me.utoronto.BITNET

In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes:
>
>	I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc,
>but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to
>boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s)
>should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the
>PC to be served by Unix NFS servers.
>
>	If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or
>words of wisdom, etc.

Words of wisdom: Diskless workstations cause much higher net traffic than
those with even a small hard disk.

>
>	I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word,
>the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence
>it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when
>first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are
>all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to
>PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked
>drives.
>

There are two ways to fix this.  One way is to get a set of BIOS "boot roms"
that will use BOOTP or TFTP to boot off a boot server on the net.  I'm
not completely sure how this works, but I know you can buy them somewhere,
and then you don't need a floppy at all.  Refer again to words of wisdom above.

The quickest way for you to fix this, is to put a line like this in your
config.sys file:

	SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM C:\ [/E:envsize] /P

For DOS versions 2.xx, leave out the /E parameter, it won't work
For DOS versions 3.00 - 3.2x specify the number of paragraphs of
environment space like this:   /E:32    This sets your environment
size to 32 paragraphs, or 32 x 16 = 512 bytes = 1/2 K.
For DOS versions 3.3 and up, specify the number of bytes of
environment space like this:   /E:512   (Sets an environment of
the same size).

Or you can leave off the /E parameter altogether.

The C:\ specifies that command.com is to be reloaded from the root
directory on drive C.  You could also use C:\DOS or C:\USERNAME\DOS
if you want.  The /P is necessary to tell the first command.com
that it is the first one.

Hope this helps.
-Jeff D. Pipkins
pipkins@imagen.com

In article <1990Mar7.214649.17250@me.toronto.edu> sun@me.utoronto.ca (Andy Sun Anu-guest) writes:
>In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk writes:
>>
>>	I am trying out a PC configuration whereby the PC has no hard disc,
>>but gets all of its stuff from a networked disc. The floppy drive is used to
>>boot up MS-DOS & PC-NFS initially, and then (it is hoped), the network drive(s)
>>should take over. I am using Sun PC-NFS for this purpose - this allows the
>>PC to be served by Unix NFS servers.
>>
>
>I have seen similar setup, where a PC has a Ethernet card and running SUN 
>PC-NFS and connects to a SUN 3/60 workstation. That machine has a hard disk
>but I don't see why you cannot do it with a floppy. You better make sure 
>that your have a 1.2 MB or 1.44 MB floppy to house all the device drivers
>and NFS programs though.
>
>>	If anybody has tried a similar thing, I'd appreciate tales of woe, or
>>words of wisdom, etc.
>>
>>	I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word,
>>the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from whence
>>it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when
>>first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are
>>all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to
>>PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked
>>drives.
>
>If you type 'set' in DOS, you will see an entry called COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM
>in your case. COMSPEC specifies which drive you boot up your machine from.
>At the end of your autoexec.bat, if you put a line
>
>	set comspec=e:\command.com (or whatever the network drive letter is)
>
>I think MS Word will use that instead.
>
>>
>>	Any help or advice appreciated.
>>
>>	Ivan Warner
>>	British Telecom Research Labs
>>	Martlesham Heath
>>	Ipswich
>>	UK
>
>Andy
>-- 

The system that we are using allows us to network PC's without hardrives to
our network servers via PC-NFS.  Each PC has a copy of PC-NFS assigned to it.
Once booted, the PC looks to the "I:" drive (our network drive) for all of the
software.  This system of doing things works out fine for PC's with or without
hard drives.

Glenn


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! Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA   !
#################################################

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In article <123@qmsseq.imagen.com>, pipkins@qmsseq.imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins)
says:
>
>In article <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk> iwarner@axion.bt.co.uk      :
>writes
>>       I also have encountered one problem: when exiting from MicroSoft Word,
>>the beast insists on reading COMMAND.COM from the floppy drive (A:) from     e
>>whence
>>it was booted. I need to tell it to look on the network drive, but NOT when
>>first booting up. When powering up command.com, autoexec & config.sys are
>>all read from a system floppy. This also contains code to boot up & log in to
>>PC-NFS. Once this has been done, all interaction should be with the networked
>>drives.
>The quickest way for you to fix this, is to put a line like this in your
>config.sys file:
>
>        SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM C:\ [/E:envsize] /P
>
This is the first step, the second (and the more important one to the
original question) is to include the following line in your autoexec.bat:

         SET COMSPEC=E:\COMMAND.COM

or whatever the full pathname of the command.com on the network drive is.
You must be certain, too, that the DOS version is the same on the boot disk
and the network disk (at least the command.com's must be the same).