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You can netboot a Pi. Every Pi in my house netboots. I have a whole bunch of them. Some play games, some play videos, some play music, and a few other minor thi

You can netboot a Pi. Every Pi in my house netboots. I have a whole bunch of them. Some play games, some play videos, some play music, and a few other minor things. Because they all netboot, you can change what each one does by renaming a file on the server and then rebooting it. It's great.

rullopat 3y ago
You made me curious: what do use them for exactly?
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  One is the "smart" part of my smart TV. One powers my hifi. One connects my non-networked printer to the network. One is an NTP server which gets the time from GPS, although that one will probably be retired soon, internet time works fine. I used to have one inside a MAME cabinet but I upgraded it to a "real" PC because the Pi isn't really powerful enough for modern versions of MAME.
  - arapacana 3y ago
    What do you use for the smartTV (distro)? And do the big streaming players work happily?
    - LeoPanthera 3y ago
      I use LibreELEC. I don't watch streaming TV, I have traditional cable and an HDHomeRun Prime box which acts as a cable-ethernet interface, which Kodi will happily connect to.
undersuit 3y ago
Every new Pi model needs a bit of time for the Netboot firmware to be worked out. I would research the RPi5 before you bought it today.
reedlaw 3y ago
Do you have a guide or any tips on how to do this?
- _vOv_ 3y ago
  It's called PXE boot. You need a server to host the ISO (via http/ftp/tftp or whatever you prefer) and a DHCP server that will distribute the ISO URI to the client. Configure the client to boot from the network in the bios and put it in the same LAN as the dhcp server. That's the gist of it.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    Raspberry Pi's don't use PXE boot, they have their own proprietary system. The kernel is fetched by TFTP, along with a config text file which species an NFS location to mount as root. Boot then continues from there.
sixothree 3y ago
You can even boot from USB
PrivateButts 3y ago
Are they using like a RAM disk then or are they mapping a network drive for storage while they're running? I've always been curious about setting up netbooting but beyond a failed experiment a long long time ago I haven't really tried.
op00to 3y ago
What sort of issues do you see from netboot vs. booting of a USB SSD?

rullopat 3y ago

You made me curious: what do use them for exactly?

LeoPanthera 3y ago
One is the "smart" part of my smart TV. One powers my hifi. One connects my non-networked printer to the network. One is an NTP server which gets the time from GPS, although that one will probably be retired soon, internet time works fine. I used to have one inside a MAME cabinet but I upgraded it to a "real" PC because the Pi isn't really powerful enough for modern versions of MAME.
- arapacana 3y ago
  What do you use for the smartTV (distro)? And do the big streaming players work happily?
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    I use LibreELEC. I don't watch streaming TV, I have traditional cable and an HDHomeRun Prime box which acts as a cable-ethernet interface, which Kodi will happily connect to.

undersuit 3y ago

Every new Pi model needs a bit of time for the Netboot firmware to be worked out. I would research the RPi5 before you bought it today.

reedlaw 3y ago

Do you have a guide or any tips on how to do this?

_vOv_ 3y ago
It's called PXE boot. You need a server to host the ISO (via http/ftp/tftp or whatever you prefer) and a DHCP server that will distribute the ISO URI to the client. Configure the client to boot from the network in the bios and put it in the same LAN as the dhcp server. That's the gist of it.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  Raspberry Pi's don't use PXE boot, they have their own proprietary system. The kernel is fetched by TFTP, along with a config text file which species an NFS location to mount as root. Boot then continues from there.

sixothree 3y ago

You can even boot from USB

PrivateButts 3y ago

Are they using like a RAM disk then or are they mapping a network drive for storage while they're running? I've always been curious about setting up netbooting but beyond a failed experiment a long long time ago I haven't really tried.

op00to 3y ago

What sort of issues do you see from netboot vs. booting of a USB SSD?