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From: pipkins@qmsseq.imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: Re: Networked PC (without hard disc)
Message-ID: <123@qmsseq.imagen.com>
Date: 8 Mar 90 16:45:54 GMT
References: <1990Mar6.180320.28421@axion.bt.co.uk>
Reply-To: pipkins@qmsseq.UUCP (Jeff Pipkins)
Organization: QMS Inc., Mobile, Alabama
Lines: 52

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